Itching for a Coffee

So Fair Use is Dead

2012-01-20T12:31:00.001+09:30

This altered photograph brought to you courtesy of my dog pissing on the snow and my cheap one step digital camera. I hate the DMCA. I hate SOPA. I hate PIPA. I hate censorship. I protest. And it's gonna take more than coffee to fix this. You say you want to stop piracy on the internet-- find another way. Any of you politicians who vote for SOPA and PIPA that I helped to vote in, I will help to vote you out. sapphoq

Gonna Take More Than Coffee to Fix This

2011-12-31T00:09:00.002+09:30

up close, the pod of a milkweed. photo taken just the other day. all rights reserved.

Dear V.A. Doc,

My dad has Lewey Body Dementia. I have a traumatic brain injury caused by a man who thought he could smoke pot and drive. We are currently sharing a brain. That you had to repeat yourself to us is not an entirely unusual circumstance. Please find out how to hide your irritation from your patients before we come see you again in six month-- if Dad is still alive at that time. You can probably look it up on the Internet.

No Love,

the irritated (and apparently irritating) brain damaged woman

Happy Solstice, and thoughts on Christmas

2011-12-23T17:26:00.000+09:30

Happy Solstice to those of us who celebrate the changing of the seasons.

I've been watching with some amusement the two plus camps of people involved in the so-called War on Christmas now for several years. Quite frankly, I don't care if a store employee says "Merry Christmas " or "Happy Holidays" to me in accordance with the instructions of their employer. I have the option of patronizing or boycotting a store in accordance with my wishes if I so choose. I remember some folks expressing outrage at the "Happy Holidays" greeting being offered at places of business instead of "Merry Christmas." Now on FOX news there is outrage of a different sort. Although some businesses are returning to "Merry Christmas" as the greeting of choice, I've heard at least one commentator wanting to know if the person delivering the salutation "really means it." In other words, if that person is not saved, the good wishes are meaningless or unacceptable. Arrrrgh.

On a personal level, if someone says "Merry Christmas" to me, that does not diminish or threaten my personhood in any manner. The individual who is wishing me a "Merry Christmas," whether a friend or retail worker, is not hoping that I get shot up in a parking lot, maimed by roving bands of atheists out to do violence, or tortured by an English teacher for substandard sentence structure. I do not require validation of my beliefs or my unbeliefs. And I would much rather those who do celebrate Christmas-- whether as a Christian or in a secular manner-- simply wish me a Merry Christmas. I would hope that they don't get bent if I wish them a Happy Solstice in reply. And if they do, well there is nothing for that. I will continue to be who I am. Part of the risk of allowing freedom of speech is that any of us are bound to run into some that offends our sensibilities, or perhaps deeply disturbs our inner cores. While allowing freedom of speech in public discourse is a risky endeavor, curtailing freedom of speech in the public arena is worse. I'm willing to risk being offended in order to continue to be able to express my self in the manner to which I as an American have become quite accustomed. I love having freedom of speech. I will not willingly give it up.

Once we get into public schools and public spaces, the issue gets a bit more complicated. Public schools ideally should not be sponsoring nor even be giving the appearance of sponsoring prayer or specific religious viewpoints. Even among Christians, there are specific doctrinal differences. And so when the question of allowing things like teachers to witness about their beliefs to a captive audience of kids, the question must arise of "What are these people telling my kids and why do I think it's okay for them to do so even in the name of Christianity?" Parents get to address religious questions with their children. Even the most Christian of Christian teachers in a public school system don't. The other problem with school employees getting tangled up with religious affairs on school property has to do more with the nature of kids. Kids bully other kids. Kids mock other kids for not believing as they do. This mocking worsens when there is someone of authority endorsing religion in the public school classroom. The magazine put out by Barry Lynn's outfit, Americans United, tells about things that have happened to kids in public schools who are not Christians. I remember myself in sixth grade having a classmate whose parents were atheists. She was being brought up in an atheist household. The rest of us were aghast to discover that this girl did not cotton to any creation myths. We were believers in Genesis because our parents were. This girl was not. We kept asking her about God, insisting in our own juvenile ways that there must be a First Cause. She consistently countered our arguments with evolutionary science. We were a small class in a small school. The bullying did not happen there. But it has in other places as late as the year 2011.

I believe that my tax money should not go toward the erection or maintenance of any sort of religious stuff on government or public property. Nativity scenes-- forget about it. Let churches display them on church property if they wish. I don't want a nativity scene gracing City Hall. Even if other religions are represented along side the nativity scene, I don't want any of that stuff at my City Hall either. I live in my town. My tax dollars should not go toward any of that sort of thing, period. I do not want to live in a town that refers to itself as Christian. I want to live in a regular town whose mayor has the sense to know that religion should be a private matter and that displays of religious expression (such as a Nativity scene) is best done on property held by religious individuals or congregations.

Furthermore, I believe the government should get out of the marriage business. Let those who marry in religious settings call themselves married. Let those who marry in front of a judge call themselves partnered. Both the marriage and the partnership should come with the same legal rights, protections, and responsibilities. Each religious body-- just as they do today-- can decide who they wish to marry or not marry in accordance with their religious beliefs and traditions. A judge would not get to do so. Any two competent adults who present themselves to a judge should be granted a civil partnership, once state requirements for the license are met. To those who dislike the idea of two non-heterosexual people living together and loving each other, I offer the old famous re-joiner: Don't care for gay marriage? Then don't marry one. And let me endeavor to put to rest the idea that if gay civil partnerships and gay marriages are allowed, that people will be stampeding in with their sheep, goats, and cows. The sheep in Schoharie County have much more to fear from their heterosexual owners than from a random non-heterosexual individual who is currently denied the dignity of public recognition of their love. The laws on the books which currently make beastiality a crime will still exist when non-heterosexual partnerships and marriages are allowed throughout the land.

Anyone else having any thoughts?

sapphoq is itching for a coffee

A Murder of Crows - Volume 30

2011-08-02T04:06:00.000+09:30

I have been railing against the United Nations for a long time now, for a host of reasons, but to narrow it down to the most basic, I would have to say that the real issues are simple. Wrapping your head around it is also pretty simple, unless you really don’t want to and then it is another story. The UN is a collection of all the countries that are recognized by the UN and for the most part every country has a say in how the UN does its daily work. The bulk of the UN is made up of dictators, despots, communists and fascist regimes to the tune of well over 80% of its membership, and of the other 20% that is left over there are less than a handful of countries that aren’t basically socialist and leaning towards the despotism through democracy that a lot of the other regimes are. In and of itself that is NOT a recipe for a free exchange of ideas in a free society. There is no real “togetherness” unless by “together” you mean the 80 plus percent of the United Nations that generally oppresses the people held slaves by birthplace.

Now more over when you scratch the surface a little deeper you have nothing more than the makings of that wonderful New World Order that Progressives have been clamoring for forever. The despot nations suck the marrow out of the bones of the capitalist societies that maintain a certain level of liberty, while undermining the liberty itself until they can drag them down with them. The United States not only houses the United Nations, but it also does most of the funding of the United Nations, and those that assume that we should because we are the most powerful or the “luckiest” of all these nations is way off base. It’s like an entity taking your money away from you so that they can fund your neighbor’s property, the whole time your neighbor’s agenda is purely to kill YOU. Some people would think that is just great but the chances are pretty good that you would not. This of course is why seriously oppressive nations like Iran get “sanctions” put on them when they do evil stuff, while at the same time so does Israel for simply defending itself.

Now of course the United Nations is a wholly progressive arm of globalism which means that a lot of the “unreported” stuff that it does is completely within the norms of what Progressives do, while at the same time completely and utterly evil. Lately the news {if you read actual news services} has been talking about how the United Nations itself was running a slavery and sex trafficking business out of Bosnia, pretty much the whole time America was fighting the war for them. You can read about it here rather than having my own words bungle it all up. This is actually an old story, as parts of the world that are a lot more a sensitive to these types of atrocities, and those that blame anything the UN does as “America” and imperialism were belting these stories out like crazy back in 2002. Now it has finally started cracking legitimate news sources here and is being buried by mainstream ones. On the other hand what is “mainstream” these days as most people get their news from Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert?

I on the other hand have taken a much different slant on the whole issue at hand with the United Nations. When the United States has a Democrat in the Whitehouse we inevitably head down the path of Progressive UN politics and for the worst every time. First and foremost aside from Truman, who was close personal friends with a particular Jewish man from school, the Democratic Party in this country has always been a landing spot for anti-Semites. Clinton spent an inordinate amount of time sending his people over to Israel to interfere with their election process and in the end had gotten Ehud Barak elected over there. While this was going on the wholesale slaughter of innocent people in Rwanda which had started under his predecessor, but really hit its stride when in 1994, 580,000 machetes were being imported into Rwanda expressly for the genocide. Everyone knew it, the United Nations ignored it, but they were right on board with the Israeli elections and the breaking down of the Israeli nation. Later on the same flawed logic was used when America was thrown into the Bosnian civil war {and as someone who works with refugees of Bosnia, don’t tell me about the Serbians, it was mostly Bosnians killing Bosnians} because unlike the African nations these people being slaughtered were white. Another trait of the Progressive left is racism, and the United Nations is always on board with that as well.

Further on down the road we watched the United Nations force America into the conflict in Kosovo, for the same reasoning. White people being killed by Serbians who for the most part were defending their own land, and the United Nations, the news media and our president at the time spun it differently. It was an all out assault to demonstrate that the United Nations at will could assist in the theft of land from one body of people and give it to another, and with the Democrat we had in the Whitehouse it was played perfectly. The Albanians that stole the Serbian land, went on to basically give it to Albania, which is a trend as long as a dictatorship is involved. Nobody really goes on and on about the Democratic values of the nation of Serbia but it is a far cry from that of Albania, and in the end the UN almost always sides with the more oppressive people. We see this going on with Israel now, as the horribly oppressed Palestinians {oppressed by any and all governance that THEY impose upon themselves from Arafat to Hamas} seem to get all of the attention of the United Nations and Israel gets ll of the sanctions. Why you might ask? Well again the United Nations has no issue with land being conquered as long as despotism reins in the newly conquered land.

Now as the typical Progressive left line is that Israel is the conqueror, that is ok for them. There is no historical acknowledgement that Israel re-conquered land that even the Romans allowed them to govern themselves with an overseer. Factually speaking the Israelis stood on that land almost a millennium before Mohammed was born, and the Muslim faith was created. The Palestinian name is a spinoff of the people who were at odds with the Jews back in the beginning known as the Philistines, but there is NO similarity between the two cultures as the religion of peace had completed its own genocidal ways on the Philistines, as it had the Byzantines and every other culture in the region, except the Jews, who rose again and took back their land and installed a quasi-democracy with European socialist leanings. What do you expect they escaped European oppression after all?

This brings me to another great lie that the United Nations and their friend in the media and the hard Progressive left bring to you on a day to day basis. Jordan and all of that land that was stolen from .. you guessed it if you have been paying attention, the Palestinians. Never a once does the UN, the media, the President {Democrat or Republican to be fair} or anyone else, save a few that are called “radicals” or “liars” ever bring up the stolen Palestinian land east of the Israeli border, and that is because there are two factors that blaming the Jordanian theft wouldn’t solve. The first is that whole oppression problem as the United Nations and the despots that run it are sick and tired of a democracy sitting there in the middle east, and secondly that whole Jew problem. To the Progressive left there has always been a “Jew Problem” and regardless of whether you follow history or not every left wing dictator has sooner or later gone after wiping out the Jews. From Hitler to Stalin to even all of the dictators that preceded those two {because I am not afraid to say that it is in the cultural nature of those people and not just pleasant “accidents” of who they elect to lead them} because it is an easy face to apply to the beginning phases of the cultural warfare that all dictators need to survive.

Now as the United Nations play its games. It has a Progressive left President in Barack Obama to arm its psychopathic ways. The United Nations spouts class envy, mostly at the United States who fuels its very existence. The president agrees with everything that they say and it is always just a waiting game with them. Sooner or later with the right combination of celebrities, causes, reeducation and most of all time, they always get into a better position to fundamentally transform the world. You need to remember that the next time Angelina Jolie whines to a camera about how Darfur is out of control, then she sits down with the other UN ambassadors and eats lobster dinners paid for by American taxes, and not a single thing gets done to stop the genocide. You remember that the next time Barack Obama stands in front of a podium and talks about “the rich” not paying its fair share, despite the fact that the richest 1% of America pays 37% of the taxes and has 19% of the income while the bottom 50% has 13% of the income and pays 3% of the taxes. Remember where that talk ALWAYS starts and ends. The Jews have all the money and we need to take it back. It’s been a winning proposition to all Progressive left causes throughout history and it sickens me when the very people who cheered along the hate and class envy act like they didn’t see it coming in the end. ;8o)

Other Crap This Weirdo Publishes... The Crow's Nest {The Homepage of Jeremy Crow} Mental Notes & Random Musings {Daily Blog} Mental Rants & Political Rage {For Those That Like His Political Rantings} Mental Imagry & Random Perversion {Adult Stories .. Assume they are rated X} Itching For Coffee {Community Blog} Jeremy Crow on Twitter {For The Easily Amused} Blogaholics Anonymous {E-Mail Blogging Group}

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Taking the "Fun" Out of Dysfunctional

2011-05-16T02:29:00.000+09:30

To my first half-sister, I remember you when you were a baby. You had a little sky blue dress and a head full of brown hair. You were cute. And I loved you. When you were seven and I was seventeen, I was torn from the life I knew with you and our mother and your dad/my step-dad. It was the second beating and far worse than the first one. Our mother and your dad/my step-dad had shown up at the church I'd been attending drunk. Our mother dragged me out of the church on my knees, flung me down the steps. The people in the church began praying, loudly storming the gates of their heaven on my behalf. I could hear the church people as I was being forced into the car. The beating began in the car. Our mother sure could pack a punch. At home the beating continued. I can still hear our mother saying to your dad/my step-dad, "Hit her, T. Hit her." as she handed him the umbrella she had retrieved from the hallway. She was exhausted and needed him to continue the beating for her. The lights went on in the neighbors' house and just as quickly extinguished. My screams were that loud. The next morning, an elder of the church took the only meaningful action that anyone there that night had. He called my father.

My dad called me the next morning. It was a Monday. My dad begged me to come live with him. I said yes. The second beating had been much worse than the first. (I had the scars on my knees for years after). After the first beating, I comforted myself with the mistaken belief that this wouldn't happen again. But it did happen again. And so, right after our mother left for work I began to pack in secret. Over the course of the next three days, I took as much of my stuff out of the house as I could.

During that time, I lost track of you in my memory. In my memory, I cannot bring forth any accounting of your whereabouts. I'm pretty sure that you were left sleeping at home when our mother and my step-dad left the house in a drunken rage. Your grandparents lived upstairs so you would have been safe enough. Were you sleeping downstairs or upstairs? My guess is that you were sleeping downstairs. I was sleeping upstairs in your uncle's bedroom while he was in prison. Did you wake up during any of the commotion? Did you sleep right through it, or pretend to sleep right through it afraid that you would be next? Did you tell yourself that I was bad, that I deserved it?

You told me once-- many years later-- that you have no memories of your own childhood until senior year in high school. You remember being thrown down the cellar steps because you were refusing to practice the piano. You told me that you had thought that was "normal." I don't know what you went through after I left the household. I had to leave for my own safety. Did you become the target that I had been? I had a fantasy about rescuing you for several years after I had to leave. During my visits through the end of your high school years, you didn't seem to want rescuing. You did write me once about going to a concert and taking your first acid trip. I don't remember what I wrote back to you. I do know your letter shook me to the core and that I did write back. I had found recovery from my own addiction at that time. Your letter scared me. You were only fourteen. I was twenty-four.

There was your first wedding. I decided not to attend. I didn't feel that I would be safe there. Years later, there was my wedding. You and my other half-sister met for the first time. You are ten years younger than I am. She is twenty-five years younger-- my dad and his third wife's child. You don't know each other. You aren't related to each other. I don't know what happened at my wedding. Both of you were bridesmaids. You hated each other. Both our mother and my father indicated to me separately that neither of you wanted a copy of the picture that the photographer took of the three of us.

Your dad/my step-dad got older. He had a heart attack. I went to see him at the hospital. He thought he was going to die. In that hospital bed, he made amends to me. He didn't die then but the amends stuck. (Our mother to this day will not admit to our history). Years passed. Your dad/my step-dad had Addison's, developed Parkinson's. Began failing. He died. Our mother called me on the telephone two weeks after he was buried to tell me. (I found out later that she had "allegedly" called my aunt directly after he had died and told my aunt that she had told me). I was left out of the obituary that the on-line volunteers found for me later. I signed the on-line guest-book. I live, dammit. Your dad/my step-dad was important to me and I miss him. He wasn't my dad and can never be my dad. But he was my step-dad. And you are still one of my half-sisters.

You got married again, had a couple of kids, moved far away. Made something of yourself in your community. The last time I saw you was at Gramma's funeral, holding your little boy in your arms. You shunned me, ignored me. I needed my dad, demanded that he come to the funeral. After all, he had known Gramma and had loved her too. Perhaps that was the reason for our mother not telling me about your dad's/my step-dad's death, I don't know. I can only guess.

I talked with our mother on the phone on Monday. It was a polite but nice conversation. I do not need her to acknowledge our history together. Through the years, hope changes and my hope had changed. Our mother and I have been like two women waiting for a bus, seeking some sort of conversation and perhaps a tiny connection. And on Monday, I thought whatever healing was able to happen between us had. I misjudged her sense of vindictiveness, her need for revenge.

On Tuesday your second husband died. On Thursday, our mother called our aunt and asked her to tell me that your second husband had died. By Thursday it was too late to arrange for a plane. I scoured the internet for your address so I could send you a bereavement card. I did not find out the arrangements until last night-- courtesy of the internet once again. I looked up your address on Google Earth, saw your home and your neighborhood. Flew past the place you work, the downtown stores, the bay. It was not by my will that I am absent from the viewing today and the funeral tomorrow. All of those things are not really for the dead. We do those things for the living, for those left behind. I would have liked to have been there for you and for your kids. But we have become strangers. (Our mother sure knows how to take the "fun" out of dysfunctional). I am crying on the inside.

Tomorrow I will send you the card I got for you. It is the proper thing to do. My dad says it is and my husband concurs. I wish for you comfort from your family, friends, community. I hope your children will make it, grow up to be compassionate human beings and without any history of the traumas that you and I have both experienced separately. It is many years later, little half-sister. You are a grown woman with a family of your own and a dead husband. I am much older than seventeen now and you are much older than seven. I was not able to rescue you and for that I am truly sorry. Goodbye little sister.

sapphoq on life

One Less Lunatic

2011-05-16T01:18:00.000+09:30

On September 9, 2001 I was down in a basement doing finances for the place I was working at and doing quite a bit of cursing. My assistant ran down the stairs. She began furiously knocking at the office door. This action was in direct contradiction to my wishes to be left alone while I cursed and swore at the numbers before me.

"What?"

"Television...plane...crash..!" Nothing ever excited my assistant but whatever it was had rendered her practically incoherent. Somewhat annoyed, I got up and followed as she plowed back upstairs and into the living room. Smoke filled the television screen. "A plane ran into the Twin Towers," my assistant said, pointing. A second plane then crashed and the Towers were collapsing. "Oh shit," my assistant said.

I passed the rest of that day in an anxiety-ridden fog. I was afraid that the bombers would get Albany next. I stayed overtime that day, waiting for each of my people to return home from day programs across the Capital Region. I was horrified to discover that at one of those programs, the staff turned on the television and watched the horror all day, practically ignoring the developmentally disabled folks they were there to provide a service to. Had I known, I would have gone to pick up my two people who attended that program and brought them to the safety of their home. As it was, I waited until every last van had left the driveway. I stayed for dinner that night. I had to know that every single one of my people was safe.

One of my people in the days to follow became obsessed with the television reports. Another had nightmares. I pulled the plug on the television and announced that it was "broken." The horror receded. The television "got fixed." Life went on.

I went to the gym almost daily. I watched for reports of the dead, searching for the names of folks I knew in the City. The stock market plummeted. The economy began its' free fall souring. I wished fervently that we had gone in and bombed Iran like crazy people back when the students took over the American Embassy instead of trying to "negotiate" with terrorists. Perhaps if we had, 9/11 wouldn't have happened. I declared this to anyone who would listen. (I still believe that today). Life went on.

Wars came. Politicians got elected. People got killed. Our airports now had security checks. Some folks didn't like that. I figured those people in the airplanes on 9/11 would have welcomed the inconvenience of long lines and airport employees with dampened senses of humor if it would have kept them alive. I had my car accident, got my own brain injury. I went cross-country by myself for three weeks in order to retrieve "pieces of my soul" from places I'd never been. During that time, I discovered that there was no security on the trains.

Our country got crazy with religion. More people died. More politicians got voted in and voted out. I was in a chat group on the web that Sunday night when someone said that Osama was finally dead. One of the moderators attempted to keep the chat group on task. That wasn't going to happen. "This is big," I typed. I myself was a mod of that group but suddenly I didn't care about our stated purpose.

Some things I don't understand. In response to hearing about Castro's editorial about how we were "wrong" for killing Osama in front of his family (no, I haven't read the piece yet. It is on my list for another post) my instant retort was, "Screw that." He didn't give a shit about the families of all the people that he had arranged to be killed. I don't give a shit about him dieing in front of his family. Go ahead and call that unchristian of me if you like. I am not a christian anyways and so I really don't care. And I don't understand how the Pakistani government could not have known that Osama was in their midst. I heard that something like 81 Pakistanis were killed a day or two later for their troubles.

Yes, there is one less lunatic alive in a world full of lunatics. My dad says there will be more bombings over here as a retaliation-- smaller targets. And more people will die.

To the people who make decisions about who we may bomb, lets get some balls shall we? Pull our troops out and bring on the nukes, I say. Any bastards who dare to bomb us ought to be nuked out of existence along with their families and friends and countries of origin.

radical bloodthirsty sapphoq

Dearly Demented Dad

2010-10-08T12:26:00.001+09:30

Dad wants to go to alf and I feel guilty.
He even has one picked out-- the one we saw that was affordable.
He is visiting us because he has a neurology appointment tomorrow.
He wants to visit the alf AGAIN tomorrow.
He doesn't know when he wants to move in yet but he clearly wants to live there in his own room on the second floor-- it's a coupla miles from our home.

Dad had five accidents in five months and thus quit driving in May (car got wrecked) and I feel guilty.
I'd tried to get Dad to quit driving a couple of years ago but failed. His wife/now ex-wife felt unable to get rid of the car. I told the state of New Jersey that he had dementia and sent them copies of his records and of his failed driving evaluation-- so they gave him his license back.
And so he had his five accidents in five months this year (thankfully no one was hurt. The last one was the worst-- he plowed into a parked car and then drove to the police station to tell them that he had an accident).
He still has his license. He says he won't "give that up."
But at least the car is gone.

Dad wants to stay with ex-wife "for as long as she has bills that she cannot pay alone" and I feel guilty.
She says she tells him to think about himself and his own needs. He says she doesn't talk to him at home or that she is "mean." He wants to get a part-time job once he moves to the alf-- whenever that is.

Dad won't take any medicine for his dementia, copd, or atrial fib and I feel guilty.
When he lived with us for several months a couple of years ago, after a very long time I had gotten him to take meds and he had even agreed to see a neurodoc up here. But the ex-wife was still his wife then and she wanted him back home so he went. Now it is two years later, he's deteriorated further and he still has no dementia meds.
His walking is worse this week than it was two weeks ago when he was here last.
The only meds he will take now are Rogaine, Robitussin, and an over the counter anti-constipation pill. He says he is taking the cough medicine and the anti-constipation pill for his copd.
His a-fib puts him at high risk for a debilitating or deadly stroke (yes I just saw that commercial on teevee. Dad didn't see it-- he is sleeping in his chair). My primary care doc told him that and he didn't seem to care. There was no reaction to that news. He says his brother takes the meds and his brother had a stroke anyways. (The brother mostly recovered from it).
Can the once again untreated a-fib have caused the dementia or worsened it??? (No, there have not been any mini-strokes). He has the neurology appointment up here tomorrow and I am afraid of the answer for that one.

Dad is here alive and I feel guilty. I have tried to protect him and failed.

Dear Neighbors

2010-05-18T23:30:00.001+09:30

Dear Neighbors,

The other day I noticed that you were adding another panel to your "privacy screen." Although I do not understand why your driveway needs privacy, it is your property over there and you have a right to do as you please over there in accordance with local laws blah blah blah. There are some grand old pines that have been growing between our driveways long before either of us moved in which provide a wind-block and a living natural privacy screen. But no matter. I digress.

I object to your tying of two garbage saplings to a third in order to avoid having to cull them before putting up the latest panel. I found these two saplings tied up to a third with baling twine yesterday. Yesterday was the perfect day to go shopping for another bird feeder, which I hung up on one of the pine branches in front of the tied up saplings and adjacent to the privacy screen on my side of the property line. Yesterday I refrained from digging up some clone saplings of the aspen in my backyard and replanting them on my side of the privacy screen. I also refrained from decorating in front of the fence with some very large bluebells which persist upon reseeding themselves wherever they damn well please. And I ordered myself not to take cuttings of some poison ivy (which seems to irritate my skin much less than most folks' skin) and tuck them in along your privacy screen. I hid the knives and scissors from my mate who had sudden urges to experiment with how much force would be required to cut through baling twine. The problem, dear neighbors, does not lay in the existence of your privacy screen.

You have a pool. It must be an elegant pool. I do know it is an in-ground pool. That much I can see from one of my porch decks. Some Sunday mornings in the summertime you have jazz and champagne pool gatherings. I actually like the jazz-- although the jazz you favor is not the N'Orlins jazz that I remember from living in Louisiana years ago-- and your drinking is not my intimate concern. Although I am brain damaged, I am not brain dead dear neighbors. I distinctly remember pulling into my driveway with the thing held together by duct tape and chicken wire that pretends to be a car and watching the last of your pool contents drain down my driveway that day in early September. I remember thinking, "How odd." This trespassing by your chlorinated water upon my tarmac must have required some finesse. Your driveway lays closer to the source of the water. Indeed I dare to point out that your driveway slopes downward in a direct route to the sewer. This event was not repeated in subsequent years as I happened to be home during the great laying of the pipeline.

You have lilacs. They hang over my yard and that's okay. How it is that you think it is perfectly alright to enter my yard with your shiny shears in hand without so much as a by-your-leave escapes me. Similarly, my rearranged brain cannot wrap itself around the three men I found one day on my property cutting some of your trees down. "It is customary for a neighbor to advise another of the necessity of entry in order to take care of things like trees," I told the workmen. "It is your employers' responsibility to have spoken with me beforehand. I would not have objected had I had that courtesy extended to me. So now that I know what you are doing, carry on."

That reminds me. You have a garage which sits parallel to a portion of my now fenced in back yard. The property line allows for you to maintain your garage and for me to plant columbines. Trimming your trees and then tossing limbs back there onto my columbines is uncool. I also object to your snide comments rendered within my hearing about my supposed need for lessons on where the property lines exist. (I have the map dear neighbors, and my property consists of a square and an added isosceles triangle). And it is difficult for me to ascertain what it is that you "will not put up with" anymore when you declare this within my hearing but fail to tell me directly about your specific objections. If you approach me and calmly state what actions of me and my mate besides breathing that you find so irritating, perhaps we can stand together like adults and work out a neighborly solution to your woes. Until then, there will be no alleviation of your troubles.

Here are some things which you may not know about me dear neighbors: I don't celebrate Christ Mas and I don't have credit card debt. I don't take out massive loans for home improvement. I save up for home repairs and I pay cash. I like doing it that way. My cash paid for the driveway to be paved, the attic to be redone, the new windows to be installed, the fence. My cash will pay for my new clunker after the current clunker gives up the ghost, the window sills to be scraped and painted, and the new linoleum in my kitchen. I never understood the "keeping up with the Jones-es" compulsion and I refuse to participate in it. I choose to live within my means, not above it. We all make our choices.

Today I have chosen this format to put you on formal notice. Dear neighbors, my actions already bespeak my intentions to enjoy life to the fullest for however long I have left on this earth in my present form. I like feeding the birds and watching their antics from my back deck. I like sitting on said deck while my quiet dog snoozes in a patch of sunlight. I like my wildflower patch. I like my trees, bushes, weeds, flowers, bees, and chipmunks. I even like the little violets that grow in my grass. I like watching families of birds in my nesting boxes and forsythia bushes. I like studying the birds and other natural events from my bench on the back deck. I like hanging out on my back deck. The dog likes having a fenced in back yard. My mate likes resting on the back deck after weeding the tomato patch. The back deck and the smaller deck by my driveway both look like two people with brain damage stained it and I like that too. My dad helped me stain both decks.

My dad has dementia and I love him. My mate is fond of sharp edges and I love him. My dog is in love with life and I love her. I am defensive and irritable and brain damaged and I love myself.

No love,
sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: community living, conformity, neighbors, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

A Murder of Crows - Volume 29

2010-04-20T04:04:00.000+09:30

Although I don't think anyone has a patent on inspiration, I try to get it where ever I can. Last Friday it was rainy and cold out, and that means one thing that I rarely can escape, arthritis. My elbows were on fire, and after a few naproxen and some heat wraps I was able to get it all under control. I crawled out of bed thinking to myself that the silver lining in today was that it was leg and torso day, so the flaring pain wasn't really going to interfere with my workout. This is a plus, because sometimes I, like anyone else can find any reason in the world to not go to the gym. Why should it be any different when I have what I think are legitimate reasons?

Well needless to say this week my favorite training partner had been coming back to the gym as the weather had been better than it had been over the winter. He had said he was showing up today, so I figured that I better make damn sure I was going to be there, so he didn't think I stood him up. Throw in the fact that he would be ruthless to me on Monday when he came back again if I was such a pussy that I didn't come in. That one mile drive that I would have to make to come in, seems nothing in retrospective of what he goes through to get to the gym and with the pouring rain today there was a part of me that thought he might not make it, but that little voice in the back of my head was telling me that I better not risk it.

If this all sounds pretty peculiar on the surface you need to know that my friend Tim is in a wheelchair, and he was born with Spina Bifida. Needless to say, helping him out at the gym adds an extra half hour to my workouts, but it is rewarding in a dozen ways at least. First and foremost being that he a cool SOB, but second and most of the rest would be inspiration. You see my one mile drive to the gym doesn't really compare to his bus ride, going through 4 towns, and a transfer, to get into the gym. He comes in and he does what he can to strengthen himself, and the whole time he does it with good cheer and humor. The extra time I take setting him up between my own sets is not a hindrance, to the contrary I have found that it has given me far greater gains in strength and growth. Again in more ways than the vain.

Here comes the fun part, but why in the name of God would he appreciate a right wing whacko, full of ego, completely anti political correctness, and often too headstrong to be of any use to anyone? Well he happens to be the same thing. As scary of a thought s that is, he likes the fact that I don't watch my mouth around him, crack jokes about his disability, whine about the same sports teams and politics, and marvel at how the hour and a half flies by. Of course I don't treat him like he is handicapped, although there are times I will ask him if some evil torture I concocted for him to do is even feasible, but his stubbornness keeps him in tune with what I am doing almost every step of the way. The symbiotic relationship helps him as well from what he has pointed out because I push his boundaries a hell of a lot more than people that are concerned with political correctness. If I used the words “fucking cripple” as much as he did I probably would never stop blushing, so that might change the dynamic as well.

“Well buddy you ruined my whole day,” I told him as he came wheeling in.

“Wait until you help adjust me in the chair and I'm making the sex sounds when the girls walk by,” he threw back at me. “Your arms hurt today?” he threw in because he pretty much knew what I meant. I had told a few people that if he showed up in the pouring rain then it would take away my sympathy for the arthritis acting up. He did end up making sex sounds when I pulled him up in his chair because he slumped, prick!

The workout was briefer than usual because he had a harder time getting in and was running late, but as I taught him, and in turn he had taught me, the object lesson is to “do it and get it over with” before you don't bother doing it at all. We both know as I have ranted in plenty of blogs that it is a lot easier to skip going to the gym when you have the experience of skipping the gym, and even a 30 minute work out will stave that bad habit off. It's getting to the point though where he is starting to get too aggressive about lifting, as he wanted to do chest and shoulders again, but as a big meanie head {or as he put it “picking on the cripple”} I had to kibosh that since he did that the day before. The “picking on the cripple” part came from the fact that I wouldn't grab the weights he wanted, and gave him the bars to work his abs. He hates working abs so that is something we both have in common too, but he did it! He also came wheeling into the gym today and the first words out of his mouth were, “So you going to be nicer to the cripple today, or am I going to have to call the ACLU?” How can you not love a friend like this? :8o)

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

Want More Free Art? ...Visit the new angelis deZines on the web at jeremycrow4life.com/angelisdezines

The Aftermath

2010-03-22T23:25:00.000+09:30

I have not heard a peep from the VESID counselor nor from the job handler. I have heard that I am "not motivated to work." And I wonder what caused those two to arrive at that horribly wrong guess. My post-brain-damaged problems with executive functions such as initiation is NOT equivalent to problems with motivation. Idiots! I don't have problems with motivation. I have many other problems, but that is not one of them. I declare VESID as having amotivational syndrome. Not me. Cripes.

It's alright. I choose to concentrate on the next clean thing. The dishes in the sink. The dog that wishes a walk. Phone calls to make. Volunteer work. Looking for a job in a bookstore or library.

And so I find myself on this Monday morning plotting my next moves without the benefit of those two professional/paraprofessional "helpers" in my life.

And one more thing: How dare you, all of you whose job it is to ensure that we the disabled land menial mind-numbing jobs, believe that we all disabled people everywhere sit home on our butts all day in boredom out of our minds without your sheltered workshops to labor at and without the benefit of your entertainment. Idiots!

just spike

Jumping Through Hoops

2010-03-10T00:23:00.001+09:30

A meeting was held between the job developer and myself. We both showed up with an uninvited guest. I came equipped with an advocate whose primary function is to keep me from exploding in fury and the developer with the VESID counselor in tow who "wanted to see" me.

Many things happened during this meeting. Apparently I had met with the VESID counselor in November and we had spoken about going to school for computer repair. I do remember getting a list of questions in an e-mail regarding this and filing the questions under "totally overwhelming and just not able to get started on researching and answering." These questions allow the VESID folks to distinguish between VESID customers who are able to do the required research in order to get VESID to finance a bit of edumacation from those of us who have brain injuries and aren't able to do the extensive interviewing and looking up stats in order to get VESID to finance a bit of edumacation. [This talk of edumacation may be a moot point as I tried taking an online course in computers and stopped doing any of the related assignments after the second or third week]. At any rate, I thought the last time I had met with the VESID counselor was sometime in the summer. And thus I didn't remember to call the VESID counselor in January "after the holidaze" because I don't remember us meeting in November. I believe the VESID counselor when she said we had met-- I just have no recall of it. If I was able to locate last year's appointment book within the disorganized heaps laying around my home, then I would at least have something in my own handwriting showing that there was such a meeting.

Consequently, when the job developer called me whenever she called me to set up the recent meeting and she told me that my employment plan now says part-time work with animals like in a shelter or something I was willing to accept that. Whenever it last was that the job developer and I had a meeting I believe there was a discussion about that. Over the phone, the job handler allowed as how she would go with me to seek out volunteer work related to animals and that she would go with me to get me into such a place. Please bring the names of three animal places you would like to work at. I did.

Once the VESID counselor came into the room though, things changed. Due to funding, this cannot be. They cannot help me get volunteer work, even as a pre-requisite to seeking employment. They can get me "work tryouts" or assessments cleaning animal cages and whatnot. And wasn't I wanting to go to school for computer repair anyway? That was when I found out that the VESID counselor and I had met in November.

Along with work tryouts there was some talk about:
* a "new" t.b.i. day program,
* and t.b.i. residences,
* and the usefullness to them of having reminder notes [I have tons of lists and charts and notes but the problem is I don't remember to look at them IF I remember where they are],
*and a guy doing t.b.i. in private practice at his home evenings,
* and make an appointment with so-and-so regarding getting people in to help me organize and clean my house that isn't based upon Medicaid funding which I don't have.
I became overloaded within twenty minutes but the meeting lasted for forty five minutes.

I told them-- the VESID counselor and the job developer-- three times that I was overloaded with information. The VESID counselor informed me that she wanted me to ask questions if I didn't understand something. I was at the point where I was catching only isolated words of the conversation between the two of them. After the third time of stating that I was overloaded and adding that I was done and had to go, the meeting was brought to a close.

Once in the parking lot, the advocate commented that she was getting overloaded in there-- and she doesn't even have a brain injury. She also said that these two were not "getting" me as far as she can tell and some other things like that. Their whole focus was to push me into working (even as a "cashier" or someone who puts together uretha catheters-- I can't imagine myself succeeding at either occupation). Meanwhile, a friend of mine who lives in the same town was found a volunteer position by the job handler and a couple acquaintances several counties over were both directed by their job developers to do specific volunteer work at specific places related to their job goals.

At any rate, the job developer is supposed to contact me about the next deal-- work assessments cleaning up after animals-- at some point. For those of you whom VESID or O.V.R. has proven useful, that's cool. This has been years now of non-useful for me. I who used to access services and develop resources for others to utilize have been unsuccessful at utilizing services my own self. Ain't that a kick in the head.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: O.V.R., t.b.i., traumatic+brain+injury, VESID, VESID sucks, vocational rehabilitation

A Murder of Crows - Volume 28

2010-02-17T15:17:00.001+09:30

Well I was really proud of myself the last few weeks because I took all of my IRS booty and set all of my affairs strait. I paid off all my credit cards, cell bill, and socked away the rest for my auto insurance and the cost of registering my cars next month. Now this is on top of the extra things that I had done along the way, like getting Valentines gifts the debt left over from having to rebuild my computer last month, and paying for the myriad of “extra expenses” that I have to procure for my kids involving school. In the the end there is a really good feeling that comes over me just being at zero for a change instead of miles away from it. Of course that should teach me to feel good huh?

Well to make a long story short, I was on my way to work last night in that wonderful global warming that you couldn't even see through. Again I did everything right and was proud of myself. Needless to say I had no respect for everyone else on the road that were doing everything so horribly wrong. Accidents abound. Driving at 10 mph and sitting at every intersection for about 10 minutes waiting for the line of traffic to subside so that you could get on the next road made me damn late to begin with. So much for that extra half hour I added just in case huh? Of course I didn't sweat that, if I'm late I'm late because I never am anyway. Oh I was late alright.

I finally got into the clear, and was driving along at a brisk 20 mph, which by the standards I had gotten to that point, was NASCAR like, but still quite controllable. When I finally got to that nice bend in the road {at a bridge of course for added drama} my car decided it was going strait no matter what I did. I didn't everything right again. Tapped the brakes, tried to roll against it, and what was worse than all of that was most of it was seeming to work because by the end of the slide, it was in such amazing slow motion that I could have drawn pictures of it. I was even noticeably happy that when I hit that curb in about 15 minutes, I am not going fast enough in the least to even flirt with going over the bridge. I finally hit the curb and bounced away from it about a foot at worst. Fortunately again I was at a point where there was no traffic, so I didn't have to get bounced around by oncoming traffic or the usual genius in an SUV tailgating you. I breathed a sigh of relief and started on my way again. Guess what?

The front end of the Cavalier was practically hopping up and down as it drove along, so I was thinking flat tire, and some things I'm not going to put in a rare G rated blog out of myself. I pulled over in a spot where the road looked wide enough and found the hubcap to be shredded and hanging off in one spot so I ripped it off and noted that the tire was perfectly fine. Again a sigh of relief and again I was driving a Compton Low Rider that hopped along the road. I continued along to work bouncing along because I was already late enough, and then went in to start my shift. Of course I still had to come out an hour later to drive my poor little Government Motors vehicle across the street.

Thump Thump Thump I went along being rather miserable that my problem didn't disappear like all the rest never seem to either. Of course my mind was seeing all of that money I saved for insurance and registrations sprouting little wings and flying away. I got out of my car across the street and looked at the tires to see that one was at an awfully strange angle. Oh great, that little love tap completely bent my axle at the best of circumstances. Needless to say the fact that I was able to hop the whole 45 minute drive home is reasonable evidence that it isn't the ball joint or something that would have made the wheel fly off. This is the only freaking car that my grandmother will drive so that means one thing. If I'm lucky I'll only be short the auto insurance and the registration fees without going into my credit cards again, because it is the only vehicle that I can't just leave in the driveway until I can afford to fix it. YAY Jeremy!

Can I just be honest here? These are those times when you just want to throw your hands in the air and scream that you just don't give a crap anymore. “I GIVE UP!” went through my mind quite a few times as I was hopping the whole way home. Of course this isn't an option, and it never is. I don't have the options that my wonderful ex-wife has of floating from house to house, refusing to take care of myself and demanding that others do it for me. Yeah Yeah Yeah .. childish of me to start throwing around others faults, but seriously, I am always one “Oh Crap” away from destitution, being the mother and the father to 3 kids, and it always comes down to that no matter what happens. I have no right to a piece of mind at any time, and YES I do want to throw my self on the floor and bang my rattle and demand things myself sometimes. I do everything in my power to do the right things, and the forces of evil do nothing but sit around and peck at every one of my faults. They delight in my failings, accidents, insecurities. I just don't get that option, and I probably never will. I have to do the right things, and I will never get credit for doing “most of the right things” because it's all or nothing. On a brighter note, I've been broke, and I only have to wait another year to get caught up for a few days! Someday I assume that the satisfaction of doing my best will set in, or so the psychiatrists tell me. ;8o)

Want More Free Art? ...Visit the new angelis deZines on the web at jeremycrow4life.com/angelisdezines

Still Sorrow

2010-02-09T13:28:00.003+09:30

1. Dad continues on a cognitive decline. In spite of his own anguish (he is aware of his dementia),
he still remembers to send cards for holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries. As I bear witness to the crystallization and shattering of his brain, my heart breaks.

2. My mother called today talking about arrangements after her death. I have regrets. It is difficult even now for me to live with what could have been. I am frustrated at my own inability to do the correct thing-- to make the common gestures that society dictates.

3. Money worries can swallow up folks around me and make for a certain harshness. These are times of tough decisions and priorities. I must remain my own priority. When all is said and done and counted, we are all alone in our own skins. I have not been able to work since my car accident. I blame myself for these financial messes.

4. I directly requested that a couple of people refrain from publishing/perpetrating the latest "computer virus" HOAX in one of my second-life-is-trying-to-eat-me groups without checking to see if there was any truth to the latest circulating piece of crap e-mail and instant message "warning" us not to open any e-mail or attachment that says "Black in the White House." This is an old HOAX that has been around since the year 2000 in various forms. A simple check with snopes dot com reveals all.
Why is it that intelligent people get all giddy at the prospect of impending doom and then feel compelled to spread the word? I am sick to death of the irrationality of the co-inhabitants on this planet. This latest piece of crap is just one example.
My directness appears to be in conflict with expected web behavior. Am I supposed to beg folks to not engage in mindless clone behaviors or what? I don't get it.

5. I feel like cutting and running. Once again, the poet retreats to her lair with nothing for sustenance but her words.

spike

Absence and Sorrow

2009-12-29T10:07:00.000+09:30

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

2009-12-18T18:12:00.000+09:30

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}

A Murder of Crows - Volume 26

2009-12-17T18:06:00.001+09:30

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}

A Murder of Crows - Volume 25

2009-12-14T02:57:00.000+09:30

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}

On Politics and Swear Words

2009-11-15T09:47:00.006+09:30

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

For an ass fuck world!!

2009-11-15T08:08:00.001+09:30

Anyway I was doing a lot of thinking over the past few months and I came to some interesting conclusions about life. OK, now bare with me as some of these thoughts may be a little out there. But I figure no one reads these damn things unless you're a celebrity anyway. I mean I could say fuck all you on myspace you're all fucking retarded and no one would care because no one reads these things anyway. So fuck all ya. Well I feel better. Now for the next little thought in life. Why care? Why care about anything but jack, and shit? I mean in 100 years, hell in fifty years, who's gonna give a goddamn rats furry little ass anyway about shit that happens now? Do you really think I give a shit about what happened 50years ago? Fuck no. I wasn't fucking born yet so I don't care. Like in fifty years will anybody be pissed out when Kanye interrupted Taylor Swift? Nope, not really. I mean what they did at the CMA's was funny as hell making fun of it. But give it 2, maybe 3 years people will forget and not care. Michael Jackson's death was huge for the first month, maybe 2 but now how's talking about it? No one. That's who. I mean don't get me wrong, I love Taylor, and Jackson was god, but things happen and now it's in the past. Things moves on, and people change and that's that. Yeah if y'all haven't noticed this yet, this is my bitch fest. I really hate things nowadays. Everywhere I look and everywhere I go I see nothing but stupidity. The laws we make AND follow in this country are messed up. Like how's this one for ya, when you're broke and NEED to file for bankruptcy ya gotta pay 1,000 dollars just to file. I mean fucking really? Yeah I got 1,000 dollars to pay you but not my bills. What the fuck!? I mean dumb. Oh and it is illegal to kill yourself but when ya do.....what the fuck are they gonna do to ya? Toss your rotting ass in jail? Not let you get berried in the cemetery? Come on! Stupid fucks. Oh and one thing that most of us do IS worship celebrities. I mean we treat them like they're gods, but hey people they're people just like we are. They shit, piss, fart, and put their pants on one leg at a time. They have bad days, good days, and oh yeah THEY do, do stupid things. JUST LIKE WE DO! Guess what, some like weed, so do some of us, wow! Some drink, and some drink and drive. Guess what some of us do that too. Oh and guess what? They never signed a paper saying that they will be role models and hero's. Let them live. Let them make mistakes. HEY HERE”S SOMEING!!!! LET THEM BE HUMAN!!!! Hey does that sound like an idea? Good. Glad we got that figured out. Oh yeah how about good old ass fuck Obama? Hey let's redo our healthcare so that it's just like Canada's!!!!!!!! Yeah because you know they have the best healthcare in the world!!! Oh no wait, they was us! Oh yeah every fucking body CAME HERE! King fuck from fuckland came here to see a doc, and get help!!!!! But you know let's redo our healthcare and make it like Canada's. CRAPPY!! Oh let's wait for a year to see the doctor about the common cold! Or hey! Brake your leg wait for 6 hours or more to get help haha! Won't that be funny? I think so. I know, not the best blog in the world but hey, ya gotta write what ya feel. And hey did that ass fuck do anything HE SAID HE WAS GONNA DO? Nope! Good job ass fuck!!!!!!!!!!! Don't read me the wrong way, I'm not racist, I voted for the guy. I have black friends. I don't give a damn if he's black, pink blue purple. He is running this country just as good as George W. Bush. And for those that have a thinking issue, Bush sucked. He was an ass fuck too. White, black brown pick fucking yellow, an ass fuck is an ass fuck. So for those ass fucks who will say I hate Obama because he's black I say go back to fuckland because you're an ass fuck. Oh and to the FCC I say, BITCH, FUCK, ASS, DAMN CUNT, PUSSY, SHIT, BASTERD, COCK, MOTHER FUCKER, CUNT LICKER, and so forth. PEACE OUT BITCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!

OBAMA IS AN ASS FUCK!!!!! but so were we!!!

2009-11-15T08:04:00.001+09:30

Oh yeah I'm here to piss everybody off today! Oh my god I cannot believe what our government is doing! I mean what the fuck are they thinking? Do you know what the free market is all about, and what makes it so great? Well even if you do I'm telling ya anyway! What makes the free market so fucking great is the fact that it allowed people to succeed, and fucking fail! Big corporations should fail if they fuck up! Fannie Mae, and Freddy mac should have went under. All these stupid car companies should have fallen. They fucked up! If I spend more then what I make and go in debt the ass fucks in D.C. Don't give a fuck what happens to me. They didn't bail me out. And I'm gonna take a guess and say they didn't bail you out either right? Yeah, ass fucks. George W. Bush was a fucking moron. He said we can't let them fail! You wanna know why? I would. Give me common sense please! You know we should change common sense to “rare” fucking sense, because I don't think 90 fucking percent of the fucking world has it anymore. I will admit that I am just starting to use it myself. With that said I will say that the reason many people don't use it anymore is because we have been lied to and told that the way our own government is acting is common sense, and many of us ass fucks believed it! Well fuck me! It wasn't until this year when my ow eyes were opened to the ass fucks I D.C.. I will admit I was blind but brother now I see the light! It's time to wake the fuck up people! Obama is a joke. I wasted my vote on his dumb ass. And I will say yet again for the billionth fucking time to all you assholes out there that will say, “Oh you just hate him because he is black!” NO ASS FUCKS!!!!!! I don't hate him at all. I hate his polices. I don't give a rats fucking ass about his skin color. The ass fuck could be pink with purple fucking pokadots and I STILL WOULD NOT LIKE IS POLICES!!!!!! Get that through your racist fucking pea brains idiots! You have the god given right in this country just to not like people, and I fucking love it!!! For all you ass fucks who just LOVE THAT MAN!!! I tell you please WAKE UP ASS FUCKERS!!! He, and George W. ass fuck put this country on the road to disaster! Oh hell yeah! Obama however could have fixed shit. But did he? DID HE? NO! More bailouts, spedn more of our children's future on ass fuck shit! Our kids, my kids, YOUR kids guess what folks? WE FUCKED THEM OVER!!!! Wanna send your kid to collage? FUCKING WHY? He/she won't even get a damn job I what they go to collage for anyway! HAHA! Well I gues if they go to collage to be an ass fuck, they can go to D.C.!!! Washington, George Washington is fucking turning over in his goddamn grave right now! Saying, yelling, screaming, “WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU ASS FUCKS SCREWING UP THIS COUTRY?????!!!!!!!!” A country that he, and our other founding father FOUGHT TO GET! They thought we could keep it? HAHA! What a fucking joke! We blew it people. We fucking blew it! We blew it worse then the fucking 2 cent whore man. Hey people, It's time to wake UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!!!! Smell the goddamn roses, they smell like shit today! If I sound pissed that is maybe because I am, and so should you be! We need to get that ass fuck out of office!!!!! OUT! OUT! OUT I SAY!!!! Get him out of office. CAN WE DO IT, YES WE CAN!!!!!! We have the technology!!!!! Ok enough bad movie lines! HAHA! See I may sound a little fucking nuts, but maybe that's because of what I have seen, and witnessed this country, and our government doing! OMG PEOPLE! OMG! We can get him OUT of office. All it takes in one big massive voice! Let us shout from the streets that we will be living on if we don't do this! Let's shout HEY! YOU”RE AN ASS FUCK! WE WANT YOU OUT! We can do it. YES WE CAN! Let us stand, hand in hand and say we are no longer ass fucks! Not me, not you, not nobody! I was an ass fuck, but I'm alright now. I see the lies and the corruption! Let us fight the system and take back our country!!!!! AMERICA! AMERICA! AMERICA!

Leave them alone

2009-11-15T07:57:00.001+09:30

Do people really have nothing better to do then talk shit about people they only know from their TV sets, or CD's? I mean does your life SUCK that bad that you gotta talk shit about people you don't know? I mean, they share their talent with you, they entertain you, and yes they even help out charities. They try to give back to the community. Some do it and don't care if others know it was them, while some donate in secret. You don't know these people. You don't know what they think, how they really act, and how it does hurt when people say horrible things about them that they don't deserve. Would you like people never leaving you alone? Harassing you? Following you around and never letting you have even a second to yourself? Don't tell me well they asked for it because their famous! O they didn't. They never gave any of US permission to stalk them, harass them and fight to see who can dis them the most, and the worst. They're people, just like you and me. They have feelings, thoughts and opinions too. Let them make the same mistakes WE make everyday. Let them be themselves and be happy with their success. Let them have their alone time like we ALL like to have. Ask for an autograph, tell them you're a huge fan and love what they do, but then walk away. Let them enjoy life a little. Show some respect. You wouldn't like people shoving themselves up your ass every second of everyday, so why do it to others? They're people. Just people. People who have a gift, and a talent that they chose to share with us. We should be glad that they do it.

A Murder of Crows - Volume 24

2009-09-30T05:16:00.000+09:30

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}

Autumnal Equinox comes rolling in

2009-09-23T05:37:00.001+09:30

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

2009-09-09T00:47:00.001+09:30

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

spike

Redneck Daze

2009-09-02T01:45:00.001+09:30

1978 was the year that Baton Rouge Louisiana survived my presence along with the hurricane that touched down at Blue Bayou. In November of 1977, it dawned on my drug-fogged brain that it would really be a good idea to look for a job since school would be finished in December. I was babysitting a little red-headed autistic kid named Brett when I grabbed the family's newspaper and turned to the want ads. I promptly discovered that VISTA wanted me. I signed up and a couple months later off I went.

After a whirlwind trip-- through Connecticut (ate a meatball bomber), Boston Massachusetts (stayed at the Little Copley; saw Marshall Tucker in concert, and the movie "The Sting"; went up to the revolving bar; ate crepes downtown and listened to a bagpipe player from Alaska; called Johnathan Kozol up on the telephone and got to meet him and his sheepdog), up on through Salem (toured the House of the Seven Gables), into Maine (Route One), turned left at Bangor, went skiing in Jackson, New Hampshire (Wildcat Mountain; a stoned New Year's Eve at a local's log cabin in Concord; ate dinner with an old lady local at a restaurant who liked to chat with travelers), on through Vermont (more skiing perhaps, memory falls now), and home again-- I packed up the car with pretty near everything I could cram into it plus one cat and headed off for San Antonio, Texas.

I snuck the cat into every motel I slept in, caught a tour of Tuskeegee Institute, and got drunk in Freeport, Texas. My friend Madelin had arranged for me to stay at her two aunties' house there. In return for washing dishes at their Mexican Restaurant, I was given as much as I wanted to eat and plenty of beer to wash the food down with. I (and the cat) slept on their very pleasant screened in porch. The two aunties were actually one aunt and her lover. They were my first exposure to a non-heterosexual couple in which I was able to put aside my xenophobia long enough to discover that prejudice was a prison that kept me from enjoying people.

In San Antonio, I met some other VISTA volunteers and our trainer who was a proud drunken Chicano. I went on a tour of The Alamo, walked the river walk, ate at a cool Mexican restaurant, and got drunk too. I was there for three inches of snow. In amazement I watched the city shut down over it.

After a return stop to Freeport and the two aunties (I believe they must have agreed to watch the cat during my training), I was off to Baton Rouge. Johnnie Oliver was our VISTA supervisor there. I quickly established myself as a party animal and was off to the first of five apartments and my job assignments. I worked in a nursery school mornings (hello Robert Brazeale if you are reading this) and at a literacy center afternoons. I found the bar across from the literacy center and my custom quickly became to drink three frozen strawberry margaritas for my half-hour lunch break. I found that working was not to my liking so in early summer I ditched both assignments, having talked my way into working part-time as a literacy tutor at L.C.I.W. (women's state pen) in St. Gabriel, Louisiana.

I was always high. I got high before reporting to the prison and I left joints visible in the ashtray for my return trip home at the end of the days that I did work. One woman from Connecticut by her self-report was in prison for three years for having been found with three joints while passing through Lake Charles, Louisiana. Perhaps there was more to that story but it didn't occur to me then that there might be.

Besides being high, I was not really suited for prison work. (N.B. and still not). I did not have a commanding voice, I was shy, I had the appearance of one who was gullible and easily manipulated. Fortunately for me, the woman who taught upholstery determined that I needed watching. It was through her direct intercession that my "office" where I tutored women in reading and math was moved from the chaplain's office to a trailer directly in view of where she held her classes. It was the upholstery teacher who told me that if a prisoner asked me to bring her anything from the outside to say NO. Thus when I was approached by two prisoners who asked me to get them a National Enquirer or some other yellow sheet from a Piggly-Wiggly supermarket, I was able to tell them I didn't know what a Piggly-Wiggly was (I didn't, it's a supermarket chain). They gave up quickly, saying to each other "Come on. We will go ask [one of the guards]. She'll get it for us."

Baton Rouge was a university town and a cesspool of drugs. My last apartment was a small loft among other lofts in what was known as "drug alley." There were bars up the street and bars down the street. There were bars all over town then, along with the dirty movie house called the Regina which the locals changed to rhyme with the word vagina. And yes, I had my obligatory trek to the Regina-Vagina where I saw "Seven Into Snowy" as well as the perennial favorite "Deep Throat." The gas station was up the street from Drug Alley. Having quit VISTA and rendered virtually unemployable by my inability to show up anywhere sober, I and some other hippie freaks spent our nights at the gas station. The gas station held the distinction of never having been held up. My guess was that it was because of the ever-present stoners there at night, all night, every night.

During my time in Baton Rouge, I drank, smoked dope, smoked hash, smoked opium once (and I wanted to immediately crawl into a cave in Southeast Asia somewhere with the other opium users and never come out), did shrooms (they grew in the cow shit of the Bramen cows present along the levee of the Mississippi which was rented out to farmers, did a bunch of pills, did mescaline, and participated in the rush of Mr. Natural blotter acid for a couple of weeks which was my undoing.

Baton Rouge was a city which had redneck pride. Yeah there was a gay bar (karate whites were "in" that year) and a definite presence of students from far off places (notably Iran-- I had lunch with several of them in their apartment and went to a meeting of Students for a Democratic Society which was showing the Joe Hill film that night) and certainly it was not a "whites only" kind of city. Interracial couples-- no big deal on the eastern seaboard-- were just allowing themselves to be out in public. The Ku Klux Klan had an office on Florida Avenue and a listing in the phone book. New Orleans was an hour and a half away (and requires its' own entry to do it justice).

I was hanging out with The Shitdogs, a local punk rock group whose music showed a definite influence by the band Devo. I was a foul-mouthed drugged up drunk. When I called home, I told my dad that I wanted to get a pistol for my own protection and he started to really worry. I told people lies about how I was doing and myself even bigger ones but the Bad Acid Trip stopped most of that. There was a rush of Mr. Natural blotter acid and I tripped every night for a couple of weeks. I had stored them in the freezer and the hippies at the gas station said that made it "stronger" but I don't know if that was true or not. At any rate, my last acid trip found me laying on my loft listening to Jefferson Airplane sing "Go Ask Alice" [White Rabbit] over and over again because the stereo for some reason refused to play through the whole album. Instead the stereo tortured me by having its' needle play through the song and then return to the beginning again. After several hours, my brain determined that I needed to get the hell out of there. So I walked to the gas station where several hippies saw my condition and took me out to get me drunk. After a stop for Italian food at the only Italian restaurant in town, we went to the pool-players bar. I promptly began loudly proclaiming that the pool players were "all a bunch of rednecks." The hippies got me out of there quickly and took me to a quieter bar where they plied me with enough beer so that the Bad Acid Trip was no longer so Bad.

The next day I called all the relations in search for A Way Out, and as luck would have it, my grandfather upstate New York on the farm just had a heart attack. I promptly volunteered to relocate "in order to help my grandmother with the cows," once again packed up everything I owned (minus the cat Dylan who turned up with four kittens one day but plus Herbie the puppy who I snuck into motel rooms stoned out on anti-carsickness pills obtained from the five dollar vet in Baton Rouge), and was off again.

Upstate New York was a whole different living experience. I had left acid behind but after a few weeks found the bar. My grandmother never did let me help her with the cows. I was assigned to watering the calves. Cows are expensive.

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

2009-05-16T07:16:00.001+09:30

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

Labels: t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, VESID, VESID sucks

MEET THE NEW YEAR 1/2/09

2009-01-03T02:12:00.001+09:30

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

Labels: goals, Peter Kahrmann, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, vertigo, VESID, VESID sucks

Happy Christmas 12/24/08

2008-12-25T05:10:00.000+09:30

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

2008-11-17T07:36:00.001+09:30

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}

A Murder of Crows - Volume 22

2008-11-07T04:40:00.001+09:30

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}

Reeling in Pain

2008-10-27T23:08:00.000+09:30

Dear Little Sister,

Dad went for his two hour evaluation at Sunnyview Hospital for his
driving today.
He had some sitdown tests and then he and the evaluator went out
driving for 45 minutes.

Although Dad's reaction time is above average for his age,
he has visual inattention, poor visual scanning, poor color
discrimination, depth perception and

peripheral vision losses, poor impulse control all which indicate that
he should not be driving at all.

It was obvious to me during the pen and paper testing that Dad does have
some cognitive losses, memory losses (can't remember three words a few

minutes later-- 2 out of 3), sequencing difficulties (drawing lines
dot to dot in order
and serial sevens), has visual discrimination problems (multitude of
examples throughout

the testing and not able to be corrected by glasses) and his distance
vision corrected
is 20/40 (near for reading corrected is 20/30).

When the evaluator took him driving, she had to grab the wheel at one point
in order to prevent Dad from turning in front of another vehicle.

There were other problems with the driving also:
high distractibility, driving 15 mph below the speed limit at some points,

stopping too soon before a red light, allowing someone at a stop sign to
proceed through even though Dad himself didn't have a stop sign in
front of him...

and other stuff. The driving evaluator told Dad emphatically and several
times in several different ways that the time for him to quit driving is NOW.

His safety while driving is inconsistent. The fact that he was at one time an
excellent driver shows however it is about 50/50 right now. During the

45 minute driving session he was either excellent for 50 percent of the time
and totally unsafe the other 50 percent.

Dad did not take this news very well (as was expected-- who would?) and
does not wish to talk about it yet. He did allow me to drive home and to

the diner for lunch. He also does not want to talk about his own dad
who died in a car crash in Florida when I was in second grade.

The evaluator is not allowed to send the results to motor vehicles but
she is forwarding the results to George (our primary care doc) who is

supposed to write Dad a letter. I will see if I can get him to go see George
to talk about it without me there. Dad really needs to see a neurodoc

(fortunately there is an excellent neurodoc in Albany who is an expert
on dementias and is also informed about traumatic brain injuries)

at this point so we can get a definitive diagnosis on exactly what type of
dementia he is having (or if it is an undiagnosed brain injury from one of his

accidents?) and then the proper medication for the kind of dementia it is.
The proper meds are specific to what kind of dementia as some meds are

counter-indicated in some types of dementia but work well for others.
I am going to inquire about trains since there is a station in Montvale and

there are decidedly times when Dad wants to go to New Jersey without me.
Also because of my own brain injury I really have to stop at every rest area

or every other rest area on any trip longer than 45 minutes. So at this point
unless the State of New Jersey steps in and pulls the license, I really can't

stop Dad from driving. At least we know definitively and from an objective
source that Dad should not be driving at all.

It is bad news for sure, more evidence that Dad is not well neurologically.
Hard for us to hear and go through. Even harder for him.

Love,
spike

Two Brain-Damaged People

2008-09-30T22:45:00.000+09:30

Dad has come to live with us. He has some dementia and some aphasia. So now there are two brain-damaged people in the house-- me, and Dad.

Now I know that the official words for my brain damage is "t.b.i." or "traumatic brain injury." The reality is that traumatic brain injury equals brain damage. My brain damage was acquired after the age of 21 in a motor vehicle accident. It is brain damage nonetheless. One physical therapist from Sunnyview Hospital in Schenectady tried to tell me that "brain damage" sounds like one is "damaged" somehow. Yes, my brain is damaged. Why not just call it what it is?

Dad has some restlessness and is wanting to do housework and fix up the house when he is not sleeping in front of the television set. Last week, we decided to stain/waterproof the back deck. First we had to locate the two buckets of stain and the brushes. That wasn't any problem as my friend Ed had given us those things and they were sitting by the back door. Then we had to wait for a sunny day. That happened.

It was a very sunny day. And hot, considering that we live next door to Alaska. So Dad insisted that we wear long-sleeved shirts. The stain getting on our skin would ?eat it? stain it? At any rate, on went the hot shirts. Then there are the latex gloves-- same reason. We started working out of one bucket but then that went to, "Here's another bucket spike. You use your own."

There was lots of staining, doing and redoing. I redid some of Dad's area and he redid some of mine. Two half-gallons were left when we got done. Between us, the stained deck was definitely personalized. There are some drips and dots from my work. And some heavier stained areas from Dad's work. With two brain-damaged people staining a deck, the results will be interesting. A guarantee.

Yesterday, Dad decided that we should put together a clothes rack with vinyl bag hooked onto it for the clothes he has that he no longer wears. This particular clothes rack/vinyl bag thing was manufactured in mainland China. And I swear whoever wrote the instructions hit the "from mandarin to english" button on babelfish. To complicate things further, Dad dumped all of the numbered poles out of their respective bags. The first attempt came out with two longer sides and two shorter sides. There was a break then during which I hoped in futility that Dad would forget about this particular tortorous clothes rack/vinyl bag thing. Didn't happen.

After some "Divorce Court" on teevee, we went back upstairs for a second go 'round. This time we managed to get the vinyl bag installed but then the poles kept pulling out of their holes. And so this clothes rack/vinyl bag thing stands loosely in a corner looking more like a modern art structure than anything remotely functional.

Because of my difficulties with multi-tasking, perhaps I would have had a shot at putting the thing together if left alone in a cave far away from human civilization. No chance of success yesterday. Dad kept up a running commentary as we were working. And between my t.b.i.-related perception problems and Dad's dementia-related perception problems, shoving poles into holes at flush 90 degree angles was not a task destined for fantastic results. Husband said he will "look at it" today.

I think there is something to be said for joining a nudist colony and forgetting about clothes and things like that.

sapphoq healing tbi

A Murder of Crows - Volume 21

2008-08-29T03:31:00.000+09:30

It’s getting pretty old at this point, but I have to thank my ex-wife for finally forcing me to put a lot of things into perspective yesterday. She didn’t do it on purpose of course, but she did all the same, and as always forced me into a situation that I wasn’t very comfortable with. This isn’t exactly her method of operation, but with it all becoming quite old, it is also getting to the point where you just can’t cover up for her neglect anymore either. This is how it worked yesterday.

There was a phone call, and it was “that woman” who wanted to talk to her youngest daughter. It appears that she just remembered that her birthday was around now, and she figured that she should call and talk to her. Imtoocutus wasn’t exactly thrilled to talk to her, because like the oldest daughter she has learned the proper emotions that someone should have towards a mother like hers. The phone call was two days late for any proper birthday wishes, and Imtoocutus didn’t even bother to correct her on any of it. Her only intention was to get the phone out of her hands and into the hands of anyone but her. This is the way that Lazius Boycrazius would treat her mother as well, and it is simply systematic of how daughters relate to their mothers, especially if they are bad mothers. Problems start at this point as she hands the phone to Captain ADHD {a boy and incapable of ever truly comprehending how rotten his mother is .. genetics} and he takes the phone down to his bedroom to talk to her for an hour.

She filled his head with all of the shit that she always does. Told him about all the things she has at her apartment, her new snake, the bedroom she made for him, the toys she has been collecting for him, how she would love to see him but nobody will bring him out there, etc etc etc. I’ve said it enough that she is just the most evil woman on the planet, and clinical definitions of issues that only Oprah Winfrey could love doesn’t change the fact that at this point the only good thing she could do for her children is kill herself. I know it sounds pretty bad to say something like that but bear with me as I proceed further. In any regard, my son, as always gets to spend the first week of school, the week before his birthday, and the most hectic time of his father’s life, miserable and crying because his mother is a monster. I was at a total loss, and devoid of time to comprehend the proper way to deal with this. I had already gotten up 2 hours early to take my father to the doctor, and was sick as a dog from all the extra burdens this week. I decided to just lay it all out on the table for him.

The first thing I did was I sat him down and decided to just start with right and wrong. I explained to him that he is a little boy, and little boys are supposed to be taken care of by their parents. It doesn’t sink in all that great at first, so I had to elaborate, and this is where my own feelings started getting in the way. I told him about when he was living with his mother, and how I used to come and pick him up every other weekend. He remembered this so, I continued rationally. I said to him that I used to drive 5 hours to get here, 2 hours to pick him up, 2 hours to get back here, and then we spent 2 days here. I told him then that I would drive 2 hours to take him back home, 2 hours to get back here, and then 5 hours to get back to my home in New York. He comprehended that really fast actually when he said that it was 18 hours of driving every other weekend, and I said that it was MY responsibility as his parent to do that and I never gave him a hard time about it. He agreed. I then pointed out the contrast that in 6 years his mother has driven here to see him 2 or 3 times, and she can come see him every Saturday if she wants, and she only lives an hour away. If anything he at least comprehended why his sisters hate their mother.

At this point I had to be rather cunning in explaining to him that daddy has to work {and his mother doesn’t}, daddy has to organize trips to the zoo and the amusement park etc for him, his sisters and all of their friends {and his mother doesn’t} and most importantly that daddy does it because it is part of his responsibility as a parent. I added all of their sports {at two different schools} doctor’s appointments, library trips, grocery shopping, and a host of other things daddy has to do for them and himself, and then asked him if he could understand why he doesn’t have time to take them an hour each way to see their mother who won’t make the trip themselves? I absolutely hate the fact that that freak of a pathetic excuse for a mother {a fucking mother of all creatures!} forced me to have to have that talk with my son. This is the bulk of the reason that my oldest daughter can’t be trusted alone in the same room with her mother. As much as she dislikes her brother and sister, she hates her mother {really really hates her mother} because of this type of crap. I’ve had to hold her as she cried through long diatribes about how she hates her mother for doing this to her brother, and no matter what any of us do we just can’t keep her from damaging him at will.

I also had to have the talk with him about responsibility. This is not an easy talk with any child much less one that has ADHD big time, and misses his mommy. I had to ask him if he understood why he gets punished for things. In a roundabout sort of way we came to the conclusion that he is punished so he will admit what he did and then hopefully not do it again. Sometimes he scares me at how easily he just “gets it” sometimes, but he reasoned out rather quickly that his mother blames everyone else for everything. He even started saying how he wished that he could just meet with his mother at the court house like he used to, but then changed his tune when he remembered on his own that they can’t. He remembered on his own that they can’t because she couldn’t follow the rules, and then even noted that she still blames everyone else for that too. In the end of the conversation I had to head off to work, and I had a crying 9 year old boy clutched to me. This is simply more of the wonderful things that the so called “mother” of these children doesn’t have to deal with when she creates this kind of damage. Aside from the fact that she would never reduce herself to going to a job either, she wouldn’t take something like this head on and would simply assign names to blame.

Needless to say I had the wonderful job of filling out an inch thick stack of paperwork for all of my kid’s schools last night after work. These things seem trivial but they grate on me. I do all the hard work, get no support whatsoever {financial or emotional} from their mother, and as always I just hang myself on the cross out front in an attempt to be above all of that. She sweeps in every few months and damages her son, and for what? Her desperate need to control all of these scenarios has forced me to treat her like an enemy combatant, and I would be an idiot if I didn’t. You really need to think about it all to truly grasp the situation as it stands. Mother’s are supposed to be the one person in the world that loves you and cares for you above all other things. This mother won’t even visit her kids because she has to have them in her world. In her dangerous, irresponsible, state certified unsafe, world of despair, misery and much much worse, and if she doesn’t get it then she will completely destroy her only son to get it. Most people can’t even comprehend doing this, and there is a reason for it! It is below the level of “normal evil” that the average person can even comprehend. It will take an army of Oprah Winfrey’s to convince me of anything different ;8o)

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

A Murder of Crows - Volume 20

2008-08-16T03:55:00.001+09:30

I probably should have stayed in bed. I don’t know what the hell was up with me while I tried to sleep today, but I kept waking up with the strangest dreams. Most of them involved my cat, which was a bit strange, but at the same time wasn’t completely unexpected. The stupid thing meowls like it’s in heat all the time, and refuses to keep a non nocturnal sleeping pattern, so it has been getting on everyone’s nerves around here pretty badly. Then there is the other problem where it is an eight year old cat, and my aunt’s three year old cat happens to be a bully. For those of you that have been reading my writings for a while, you can understand that my aunt’s brain turns to tapioca pudding when animals are involved so she doesn’t get the animal structure in the house through her rosey colored glasses.

Now does this mean that Duchess {my cat} gets beaten up by Lucy {her cat} all the time? Not in the least, and this is the part of it all that is so hard to explain unless you have one of those relatives that seems to have brain damage when pets are concerned. Her cat is a bully, and a con man just like most cats are, so she torments the dogs when nobody is looking, and runs the house with an iron fist. Duchess prefers to sleep all day, and is unimpressed with such Animal Farm style hierarchical structure, and allows Lucy to do whatever she does upstairs while she sleeps in the basement. Now of course my aunt {animal disfunctionate} will not listen to any one of the six other people in the house that try to explain to her that her cat terrorizes the house, just like the four dogs, and six cats that we have buried in the back yard that belonged to her {long story .. all buried there before she moved in .. I practically run the dysfunctional pet cemetery in town} and that will never change. Life in Tinsel Town goes on.

Duchess is the new cat in the house, much older, and subjected to a house full of cats before going to the Animal Shelter, full of cats, and then here to a house full of dogs and a cat. She knows how to play the game, and she appears to be an unusually gifted cat when it comes to getting what she wants. The obvious tone that she uses when she caterwauls all note either screams “feed me,” “play with me,” pay attention to me,” or in some cases “get up you lazy asses,” and gets what she wants when she wants it. Night time is also the time when she deals with certain “issues” that the dogs don’t seem to have the intelligence to take care of during the day. When Lucy comes downstairs to push Duchess around she usually encounters a surprise that befuddles her poor little bullying brain, which usually ends up in my aunt’s bedroom with Lucy hiding under the bed and Duchess trying to tear her apart. This in turn causes my aunt to ream the rest of us out for letting Duchess bully her poor defenseless cat, and the rest of us wanting to take her poor defenseless cat and put it where her last six poor defenseless cats ended up! It shows a certain level of cunning in her cat to end up in the one place where manipulation will create the sympathy required to keep her iron paw on the pulse of what is going on in the house, but again we are dealing with an unstable individual as it pertains to animals.

Needless to say after a night of nightmares that were along the lines of waking up to all the animals in the house being killed by Lucy the spawn of Satan and a stray cat that he had in a drunken night of indiscretion, I woke up late. It wouldn’t have been too bad except it pushes my schedule back an hour, which changes my usual daily activities just enough to make me a bit grumpy. The first of which is having to go to the gym when my usual cast of characters have gone home and a new cast of characters are there. This is both a good and a bad thing. The good part of it all is that all of the mentally handicapped people from the group home are in there after I leave. It’s good for the soul to walk into the place and be greeted by eight people that are genuinely happy to see you, very interested in how your day is going, and very happy to tell you about their own day. I don’t know all of their names but I get a smile when they are all around because they are very nice people. The fact that they are escorted in by a bunch of hotter than hell grad students who serve as their aides doesn’t hurt either, but they don’t seem as happy to see me.

The bad side is the “Jump Nazis” that now fill the gym usually after I leave, and are the reason I get up a bit early to make sure that I can get into the gym and out again before they get there. Most of these are college students, but they have been recruiting lately and walking into the joint was almost dangerous. These guys and girls usually take very heavy weights and stand in the middle of the walkways and jump up and down, or do very long sweeping motions with them making the place almost closed down the whole time they are in there. Today in particular they had just about every square inch of walkway covered by each of them holding Olympic size bars {seven feet, fifty five pounds} and jumping up and down blocking every machine in the joint. My mentally handicapped little buddies were all huddled in the corner practically watching them. After catching up with my little buddies I proceeded to walk through all the Jump Nazis to get to all the machines I needed. The trick is to not humor people like this in the least.

The icing on the cake was when my mentally handicapped little buddies left and the Jump Nazis decided to have a huddle and start talking loudly about all of them. I tried to do my preacher curls and ignore them all until one of them decided that it was important to talk about Jerry {the one that has to have a guide dog as he is also a severe stroke victim} and they all were whining like crybabies about how the dog was going to cause an accident. My years of going to this particular gym, that dog has been completely unassuming and usually lounged around behind the machines and completely out of the way. I wish the Jump Nazis would learn from his example, but I saw an opportunity to do something I like to do from time to time, and couldn’t help myself. This would be pissing off a large number of people, many of which are much bigger than me, in a fit of self righteous indignation. Its fun, you all should try it some time. I piped up from my preacher bench, “Unlike a bunch of two hundred pound people jumping around in every free space in the place with seven foot iron poles on their shoulders,” which elicited the type of response one would have expected. It just goes to show that steroids and animal fur make some people impossible to deal with ;8o)

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

Spike's Wishes

2008-08-13T22:35:00.000+09:30

Spike's Wishes for All of Us:

Oh that today we not afraid of our essential solitude!
That we are able to extract what joy there may be in life today wherever we may be.
For life is sacred and we don't really know how long we have here.
Let us celebrate life deeply.

Wherever we are, that we don't have too many regrets over what could have been.
That when we are stuck, we remember that we have options even if we do not know recognize them yet.
Knowing that all of us are capable of great things that go unacknowledged,
That we will find those great things and do them anyway.

Oh that we embrace all of who we are!
That we love carefully and selectively and honestly.
That we do not negate our selves for the benefit of others
who would use and abuse us.

To know as much happiness as we have known pain,
as much love as we have known hatred,
as much comfort as we have known heartbreak.
That we keep striving until we can strive no more.

spike

*posting from a library in the middle of nowhere island maine.
*will be back in civ Sunday night.

Dear Asswipe 7/5/08

2008-08-06T06:01:00.000+09:30

A big fuck you going out to V.E.S.I.D. for operational failure.
Taking the side of the stoopid job developer in demanding I get a "return to work" note for a vertigo attack-- bovine fecal matter.
Furthermore, as far as "return to work," what work?
Screw off.
If you aren't going to help me, then get the fuck out of my way.

No love,
the traumatic brain-injury malcontent on your overflowing caseload.

The Crow Murders Movies - Volume 1

2008-08-04T04:06:00.000+09:30

I had one of those off days last night when all of my friends were either off making better friends, working over time or doing things that I wasn’t included in {thank God} which left me time to take my daughter out to the movies. She had been nagging to go out with my friends and me on Saturday nights {which ain’t gonna happen because I need ME time sometimes} so it made pretty good sense all around. The movie we went to see was “Hellboy 2 The Golden Army” as I figured it was best to see wholesome entertainment in an effort to raise my child properly, and it was a delightful surprise all around.

Don’t get me wrong or anything here, because I realize the movie made money and all, but relatively speaking, it wasn’t the box office bash that many of the other movies out there can brag about being. I can almost understand this as I have found that most of the really good movies don’t do very well, and the intolerable movies are pure gold {see my review on “There Will Be Blood” as in shooting out of your eyes for having watched that crap} and that is how Hollywood works. Hellboy 2 was one of the best movies I had seen in a very long time. It likened me back to the feeling I had when I saw Terminator 2, in the sense that it was the sequel to a decent movie, but completely blew the first one away, and more over could stand perfectly fine on its own. My daughter who had never seen the first one was easily enamored with the movie and even was able to pick up quickly on the subtle humor that should have been left over from the first, but again stood well on its own.

Truth be told, the movie not only had a great story line, but they took impeccable steps to polish all of the details. Certain areas of the movie that easily could have been washed off as fill, were crammed together with brilliantly thought out humor that added to the story, and left me feeling particularly happy with the outcomes. Without spoiling the movie the most important part I can think of is that they made damn sure that the “bad guy” in the movie {although more misguided and perhaps a martyr more than anything} was without a doubt, the baddest mother fucker I had personally ever seen in a movie. Not so much because he was unmitigated evil, or anything like that, but more because he was someone that actually could take on the “Prince of Hell” {which Hellboy for the most part is regardless of which hat he wears on Earth} and make you believe that he was every bit his match. The character building, and the “dirty little secret” that went on throughout the movie was also well thought out and quite engaging.

The only knock I can put on Hellboy 2 is the fact that its one hour and fifty minutes of entertainment was sketched together so perfectly that it flew by in a haze. It’s probably going to require another sitting, or at the very least it is going to need to be in my DVD collection the second it makes it to the Wal-Mart shelves, but I am already clamoring for another one. They built a rather intriguing story that was going well beyond the boundaries of the movie anyway, so I am assuming that they already have those ambitions, but you never know {remember Remo Williams?} what will happen in the minds of the Hollyweird. Should Hellboy 3 find its way into a theatre near me I can assure you that it will be one of the few movies that has me in there on the first night come hell or high water. Pardon the pun. Along those lines, despite how bad I though “The Order of the Phoenix” was, I can assure you that Harry Potter might be the other one.

Now to contrast this with the other “Comic Book” movie out in the theaters, I did end up seeing “The Dark Knight” which of course had been another one of those “Must See” movies for me this summer. Although it was a good movie {note the lack of “very” in there} it couldn’t wipe Hellboy 2’s ass in just about every aspect of entertainment value. Heath Leger went out with a very good performance, as I thought he would, but the part became far too droll to comprehend after a while, and the ending left a lot to be desired. The ending of Hellboy 2, and more over the bad guy {and towards the end his army of minions} that Hellboy had to deal with made Batman and the Joker look like unimpressive school children. Of course in all fairness, Hellboy 2 wasn’t even the best movie I saw this year, but that was only the fate of being released the same year as Indiana Jones, which despite the fact that it could have crossed that barrier of going “one too many times to the well” was also a masterful piece and more importantly, tied up all of the loose ends of all the Indiana Jones movies perfectly. It was almost like a gift to the fans of Indiana Jones, while Hellboy 2 was more like a treat to fans of great action movies ;8o)

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

A Murder of Crows - Volume 19

2008-07-27T04:26:00.000+09:30

The dog days of dieting are upon me. I happen to be lucky in the regards that if I want to lose a lot of weight fast, I can simply not eat, lift a lot of weights and let the muscle burn the fat off. A lot of men are like this, and it is one of the fortunate attributes of the gender. I noticed after the Mother of All the Evils’s left me, that anger led to testosterone, and by sheer fury I could bulk up in all the right places and lose the fat everywhere else, and that methodology has always stuck with me. At that time of course I went from a pathetic 220 pounds of fat, dumb and happy, and shrunk down to a measly 148 pounds at one point, but I had a lot of help with that. Since she had left me when I was in the hospital with Chicken Pox, I was already on the way to losing the first 30 pounds because of the pneumonia. I don’t suggest that route for anyone, but fate was on my side at the time I suppose. The weight lifting came along in there because I was so weak when I got out of the hospital that I couldn’t even lift my 8 month old daughter.

The rage of the betrayal kinda took all of that and made it out to be something far worse eventually. I was completely exercise bulimic, so that no matter how much I ate, I was guaranteed to run into the gym and work it out of me so hard that I gained no nutrition what so ever. I had that wonderful heroin physique and a horrendous temper, and aside from all of my other problems I was rather pathetic on top of it all. When the doctor finally changed my meds it all turned around anyway, and I started actually putting on muscle and at the end of my last “health” spurt, I was maxed out at about where I am now, although I looked a hell of a lot better. Of course I was about 5 years younger too, so that would stand to reason. At that time I was about 175, with a 30’ waist, 42 “ shoulders and chest, and I was able to ignore the fact that they don’t make clothes to fit people like that. This is a big secret in the mind of a hopeless physical manipulator {aka anorexic, bulimic} because clothes made for normal people will always make you look and feel fat.

Now I am struggling a bit again. I seem to have a better grasp of my mental facilities, but that is probably more a symptom of age more than anything else. After years of being in an impossible to fathom online relationship, and coming to grips with the fact that it was not only impossible, but perhaps more to the point, foolhardy, I was already well on the path to the level of “not giving a shit” that I had to be at to get as out of shape as I was this time around. I finally was looking at having to get larger pants so I could sit around and wallow in my self pity and eat, when I finally had enough of that. I went from 210 to as low as 178 and now am back up at 182, but my waistline is smaller still than 178 so I am assuming that I am on the turn around. The turn around being that point where you have stripped most of the fat and are now at the point of putting on heavier muscle. I still feel fat, and I still feel bloated all the time, and I actually don’t like looking at myself, which is the real reason I take pictures of myself every day. History has dictated that I am an idiot and I have to stay above the dangerous phase of getting in shape at the expense of my health. Well I figured the best thing to do at this point is take my last 50 bucks and buy some new clothes. Thank God for Wal-Mart because 50 dollars will buy you a week’s worth of clothes, and despite my body disfixiation, I can feel cool enough in Wal-Mart bought clothes. Go figure huh?

Wal-Mart is now stocking “athletic fit” clothing which filled me with a bit of jubilation. I never learn my lesson though, because I have fallen into that “athletic fit” trap all throughout my existence, and like anyone else that sells “athletic fit” clothing they are simply to make pudgy people feel better about themselves. My new “athletic fit” clothing are too tight in the shoulders, and way too baggy in the middle and when I first put them on they made me feel fat. Pretty sad huh? The trick during times like these that an old roommate of mine once told me when she was sick of killing myself through diet many years back is to turn to the side and look at yourself that way. This is why I remember to take pictures of myself from the side too, despite the vanity of it. From the side a guy can see his “shape” regardless of the clothing that he wears, and it works for women too, as long as they don’t assume they have to be shaped like a ballerina anyway. I do fit back into my old suits that had been tailored for my physique but again I had my affirmation that I am filling out more in the right places as the shoulders are tight. I am not thrilled in having to step up to 1X shirts just to move my arms, but then again they should stay tucked in easier ;8o)

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

Trolling, Threatening, T.B.I.

2008-07-25T03:32:00.000+09:30

On T.B.I., Trolls, and Threats

The pagan community on the internet is not united by any means. There are various factions and splinter groups. That is an average thing. A bunch of pagans together in one room can certainly fight like liberals and fundamentalists. Or, like frogs and snakes. That is probably average also. No biggie. I've been on the internet long enough to have my own opinions about cyberbullies and even to have acquired my very own cute little chicken trollette. That is no great woop either. I became interested in the study of cyberpsychology as a result of interpersonal conflicts on the web. And as I continued to force my brain to think in my own process of healing t.b.i., I grokked a few things about my own behavior and decisions:

1. I have acted like an ass at times on the interwebs. Oh well.
2. I made my apologies and amends. To the best of my ability, I endeavored to offer no excuses for my poor behavior.
3. I moved on.

I don't begrudge my detractors since I certainly have acted like an ass at times. In one instance, I was playing the part of an undercover reporter and that was the height of stupidity. I was deceptive. I was dishonest. People from various sides of that particular dispute were pissed at me for good reason.

In that particular scenario, I took responsibility for what I had done and endured the fallout. I learned from it. And I have to thank my good friend Jer for helping me think about the situation with clarity. Folks displayed various levels of acceptance as is their right. There are still snarks thrown in my general direction from time to time. To that I say, "Whatever." If I am going to champion freedom of electronic expression, I have to be willing to risk running into some expression that I don't approve of. Oh well. I don't have to engage in mental masturbation today. I know how to use the back button. I can put on my big girl panties and move on.

Unlike a few pathological relatives of my childhood who did their best to infest my being with the soul-sickness of not-good-enough, I do not intend to live out the rest of my life apologizing for my own stupidity of a year or two ago. I don't trouble myself with the notion that I am somehow not good enough for or less than any particular person or group of people. It is rather meaningless to me. I have moved on. I am writing about this today because I am making some connections within my own self about my own self.

* * *

Lest any of you misunderstand, the assumptions about me and the snarks do not fall under the category of cyber-bullying. People can fight, disagree, blow up at each other, call each other names, and all sorts of other stuff without that falling under pretend labels and pretend diagnoses. People do not always understand or approve of my choices. I don't have to explain a damn thing to anyone. I am free to associate with the people that I choose to associate with. I am free to go where I go and to do what I do as long as I don't impinge upon the rights of others. Others are free to do the same. Not everyone wishes me well and I don't give a damn about that anyway. The stuff of conflict is not automatically classified as cyberbullying.

The encyclopedia at P.C. magazine defines a cyberbully as "A person who uses the Internet to harass or intimidate someone else." Someone who calls me a troll or stupid or insane or a toxic fluffbunny or a fucktard is expressing an opinion. Their opinion may or may not have some validity. I am free to engage them in some ritualized name-calling or to respond or not respond in any legal way that I choose to.

The folks at tech target add the word "threatening" to the definition of a cyberbully. Sameer at the Cyberbullying Blog points out that the behavior is repetitive. There is a pattern. It is more than one occurrence. Someone e-mailed three requests to me to close her e-mail box on one of my domains. I have an off-line life. I hadn't checked my e-mail box there in a while so I only got the messages yesterday.

The first e-mail (dated June 29) states that there will be mythological salt pits in my future if I contact the young woman again. The second (dated July1) makes an unflattering inference about either my size or some quality of mine. She asks me in the second e-mail to delete her and in the third (dated July 2) to remove her. I know she meant for me to close her e-mail box but the choice of words was amusing to me. I did as requested. I have no intention of contacting her again. As long as the young woman does not continue to threaten me with mythological salt pits in my future or other stuff, we are both free to carry on in the absence of the well-wishes of the other.

The above example falls short on the repeated part of threat inherent in the definitions of cyberbullying. Here are some things that do qualify as cyberbullying:
cyberstalking,
maintaining a website that is designed to harass someone or threaten them,
posts on a website or forum or journal or blog that tell someone to watch out because the poster or friends of the poster may show up at any time,
making up lies about someone and publishing them on the web (e.g. the teen who killed herself on account of some stuff that was posted about her on MySpace and the teen who killed himself after being harassed on Bebo more recently),
texting someone for the purpose of intimidation,
making repeated fun of someone with social difficulties brought on by Asperger's on internet forums,
provoking someone in an e-group into rages and then mocking the rages,
sending someone tons of spam or bogus e-mails,
repeated racial slurs used in a chatroom against another participant.

The thing about traumatic brain injury, as well as many other disabilities, is that we are more vulnerable whether we want to acknowledge that or not. We may be more vulnerable to cyberbullying because of errors in our judgment. We may be too quick to trust others on-line, too eager to expose personal information, too fast to offer up our struggles. We can participate in flame wars without understanding what we are getting into. We can become too casual about what we publish on our websites or blogs. We may wind up communicating via instant messenger with folks who do not wish us well. (In the early days after my brain injury, a woman began to call me every day. Mate was baffled by the sudden appearance of a new close friend in my life and did not understand the almost daily lengthy phone conversations. I didn't remember who this woman was or where I knew her from. Eventually, I discovered that the woman was the daughter-in-law of a friend who just liked to talk to people on the phone).

Below are a few websites referenced in this post and a bunch that aren't. I recommend the "Are you a cyberbully? Quiz," the cyberethics site for those who like academic stuff, the Donna Williams poem, and the "Shrink the Cyberbully Game" by virtue of their being different than the usual offerings.

The other stuff may help you decide what to do if you are being cyberbullied. Inclusion of the links do not imply the endorsement of any of the websites endorsing this post nor does it imply that I totally agree with every freaking thing said.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=cyberbully&i=40624,00.asp
Definition.

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci1023061,00.html
Definition.

http://www.cyberbullying.ca/examples.html
Examples of cyberbullying.

http://www.cyberbullying.ca/info.html
Suggestions on handling cyberbullying.

http://cyberbullying.us/blog/?cat=13
A blog noting laws being passed in the United States.

http://www.wrcbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8706000
Suggestions for parents.

http://groups.msn.com/stayingsafeonline/cyberbullies.msnw
Acknowledges that cyberbullying happens to adults too. Some simple advice.

http://deathby1000papercuts.com/2007/12/cyber-bully-quiz-are-you-a-cyber-bully-3/
Are you a cyberbully? Quiz.

http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/attent.htm
Attention seekers from Bully-Online.

http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/psycyber.html
Cyberculture-- pretty cool stuff here.

http://cyberethics.cbi.msstate.edu/mason2/
Privacy from a cyber-business perspective.

http://cyberethics.cbi.msstate.edu/
Various links about cyberethics.

http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html
Identities, trolls, etc on usenet groups.

http://www.copyscape.com/
Search for copies of your pages on the web.

http://adequacy.org/
Archives of a site where trolls gathered proudly.

http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html
Writing: an excellent troll how to.

https://groups.google.com/group/alt.troll/msg/bc2e71e19c590d8e?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_umsgid=36a7593e.22750214@ruble.net&lr=&hl=en-us
Usenet trolls.

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mtroll.html
Definition.

http://www.jfo.org.uk/info/new/troll.htm
Classification.

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/posts/list.m?topic_id=12200012985
More extensive classifications of trolls.

http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSN0343424320070705
Griefers. [They are on Second Life also].

http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/
Classifications of flame warriors *the pictures are priceless.

http://blog.donnawilliams.net/2008/01/21/cyber-bully/
Poem by Donna Williams.

http://curezone.com/forums/troll.asp
Trolls on the Curezone forums [original aol article not on aol anymore.]

http://rkcsi.indiana.edu/archive/CSI/WP/WP02-03B.html
Study on trolls in a feminist forum.

http://www.emoderators.com/papers/flames.html
Flaming, 1992.

http://www.searchlores.org/trolls.htm
More on usenet trolls, attacking in waves, use of the word "sockpuppets" to mean one person
posting to a board under different names in order to agree with themselves!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/04/bot_herder_profile/
smurfs and bots

http://www.mcgruff.org/Games/cyberbully.php
shrink the cyberbully game

Labels: cyberbullying, flamewars, t.b.i., threats, traumatic+brain+injury, trolls

Itching For Audiobooks - Volume 1

2008-07-16T04:09:00.001+09:30

I finally got sick of listening to the same audio books over and over again, and I think everyone around me was getting sick of me quoting sorry old insults from the Elenium or some mundane Harry Potterism. Of course I am still a creature of habit so I loaded up a bunch of Stephen King audio books and have been listening to them over the last couple of weeks. A few of them I had read a long time ago, and a few of them I hadn’t read so long ago, but can attest to the fact that I was still married when I read my last one so it wasn’t all that short of a time. For the most part I had given up on Stephen King as I started finding his writing style to be a bit boring, but he did write 2 of my top 10 all time favorite books, and has the honor of being number 1 with The Stand.

The first of the audio books by the local author, I had loaded up was the other of the top ten that he had written and it had been so long since I read it I had forgotten quite a bit of it. This book would be Salam’s Lot which thanks to a bad movie adaptation and most people’s inability to sit and read a good book, has been relegated to the level of “crap” amongst most people, but seriously even with it being over 30 years old is literary genius. Being his second published work behind Carrie it was most likely Stephen King’s coming out party, and at the time technically sealed his right to be an author, but let me tell you, you haven’t even scratched the surface until you hear the audio book.

The person reading the audio book’s name escapes me but he is the guy that does all those movie preview voice over’s “in a time not so long ago, in a little town” that makes you desperately want to see the movie that he is plugging. With the book actually being read in that voice that usually makes you shell out 9 bucks for a movie that disappoints you in the end, you can see why his reading of Salem’s Lot makes it almost more fascinating then when I had read the book at eleven years old. The absolute “creepiness” of the book as he would read off the times “10:10 am” and then real into what was going on in the mundane lives of the town of Salem’s Lot had me enthralled, and it was harder than usual to work as I was simply wrapped in the story.

Stephen King read off the prologue of the book, and explained in his own words the thinking that went into the book. His childhood romanticism of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, his explaining of how he thought the Lord of the Rings was loosely based on Dracula {which I have often thought myself} and how he had gotten wrapped in the gruesome Vampire chronicles that one finds in the comic books. He explained how he wanted to take the old world European town that was frocked with Vampires and turn it into a mad cap American tale in a big city. Fortunately for all of us his infinitely more brilliant wife convinced his to make it in an American version of an Eastern European hamlet, and Jerusalem’s Lot was created. I think myself and he admitted it in the prologue that in the end it became more appealing as he went to stay closer to the Bram Stoker vision, and allow his characters to become heroes, than to go the Tales from the Crypt route he originally intended.

The second of these was a book that kinda bored me when I read it and was officially the last Stephen King book I had cracked, which is The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. This book was wrapped in surreal controversy after it had been released, and in my mind had been a far more interesting story than the book itself. For those who had forgotten, immediately after the book was released Stephen King got hit by a Van, and almost died, but was physically fucked up to match his mentally fucked up. Tom Gordon then blew out his arm and really never pitched for the Red Sox again. More over when he made his comeback it was with the Yankees to be a real pain in the Red Sox ass. Stephen King has since recovered, and has watched the Red Sox win 2 World Series so I guess he can stop his self moderated taboo about writing about baseball characters, but then again there was this book to sort out again.

First and foremost let me tell you that the book was narrated by Ann Heche who was famous for her own weird antics involving Ellen Degeneres, which basically ended her career as a sexy starlet. Guys for some ungodly reason despite their wanted need to watch women kiss each other, couldn’t get into watching her in sexy roles anymore, and she went on with her life, got married and had children. Go figure, but that is a little off the point here. She was the perfect person to read this book though, because I was totally wrapped in her voice. More to the point, I have to admit that her voice got me totally HOT. I realize that it is shocking to a lot of people that I am so easily amused, but I think it is the only audio book that I heard every word of. This, in the end was a good thing, because I think I had missed what was actually an excellent book the first time around. It also had one of those endings that left you with just enough information to be satisfied, but not enough information to complete the tale. I had forgotten that or perhaps had missed that point, or perhaps I was pissed off that I couldn’t listen to Ann’s sexy voice anymore.

If anyone out there wants to find out more about these audio books or would like to listen to them for themselves please drop me a line and I can make sure that they somehow accidentally get on your hard drive as they had mine ;8o)

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

Host Hostage has been lolCatified by Owlmirror

2008-07-13T16:16:00.000+09:30

[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/fyi.php#comment-980385]
Below is an excellent rendition of Wafergate which has been LOLCatified by the Illustrious Owlmirror.
(sapphoq reviews says: full of win!)

The following was copied and pasted from Owlmirror's comment over at P.Z. Meyer's science blog:

Being aware of All Internet Traditions™, I think we all know that no Internet Phenomenon is complete until it has been properly LOLCATIFIED.

Thus, we present for ur lolz:

WAFERGATE

CEILING CATLOLIC IS WATCHING YOU MASTICATE

Act I, Scene I
University of Central Florida, Catholic Chapel

PRIEST: JEBUS HAS A FLAVR!

PARISHIONER 1: I CAN HAS JEBUS CRACKER?
PRIEST: YES, YOU CAN HAS JEBUS CRACKER.
PARISHIONER 1: NOM NOM NOM

PARISHIONER 2: I CAN HAS JEBUS CRACKER?
PRIEST: YES, YOU CAN HAS JEBUS CRACKER.
PARISHIONER 2: NOM NOM NOM

PARISHIONER 3: I CAN HAS JEBUS CRACKER?
PRIEST: YES, YOU CAN HAS JEBUS CRACKER.
PARISHIONER 3: NOM NOM NOM

WEBSTER COOK: I CAN HAS JEBUS CRACKER?
PRIEST: YES, YOU CAN HAS JEBUS CRACKER.
WEBSTER COOK: YAY, JEBUS CRACKER SOOVENEER!
PRIEST: WAIT, WHUT?
WEBSTER COOK: KTHXBYE

PARISHIONERS: NO! YOU NO CAN HAS JEBUS CRACKER! NOT YOURS!

WEBSTER COOK: FEETS DON'T FAIL ME NOW

PARISHIONERS: OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!
PARISHIONERS: NOOOOOOO! HE BE STEALIN OUR JEBUS CRACKER!!!

Act II, Scene I
Diocese of Orlando

GONZALEZ: HALP! JEBUS CRACKER IS KIDNAPPED!
SUSAN FANI: STEALIN JEBUS CRACKER IS HAET CRIEM!

Act II, Scene II
Catholic League

DONAHUE: STEALIN JEBUS CRACKER IS TERRIBLE HAET CRIEM!
DONAHUE: EXPUL-SION-ATE! EXPUL-SION-ATE! EXPUL-SION-ATE!

Act III, Scene I
University of Central Florida

EMAIL TO WEBSTER COOK: WE SAD
EMAIL TO WEBSTER COOK: WE WANT JEBUS CRACKER
EMAIL TO WEBSTER COOK: WE MAD
EMAIL TO WEBSTER COOK: WE WANT JEBUS CRACKER
EMAIL TO WEBSTER COOK: WE FIND YOU
EMAIL TO WEBSTER COOK: WE RESCUE JEBUS CRACKER
EMAIL TO WEBSTER COOK: WE BRAEK IN
EMAIL TO WEBSTER COOK: WE RESCUE JEBUS CRACKER
EMAIL TO WEBSTER COOK: WE KEEELL YOU
EMAIL TO WEBSTER COOK: WE RESCUE JEBUS CRACKER
WEBSTER COOK: DO! NOT!! WANT!!!

Act III, Scene II
University of Central Florida

WEBSTER COOK: DO NOT WANT JEBUS CRACKER. TAEK IT.
PARISHIONERS: YAY! WE CAN HAS JEBUS CRACKER!
PARISHIONERS: WE GET COPS TO GAURD JEBUS CRACKERS NOW.
WEBSTER COOK: WTF?

Act IV, Scene I
Pharyngula Headquarters

PZ MYERS: WTFBBQ!!!
PZ MYERS: CATLOLICS GO APESHIT OVER JEBUS CRACKER!
PZ MYERS: IT'S A ~~GODDAMN~~ FRACKIN' CRACKER!
PZ MYERS: TEH STUPID, IT BURNZ!
PZ MYERS: WANT CAN HAS JEBUS CRACKERS!
PZ MYERS: DE-SE-CRATE! DE-SE-CRATE! DE-SE-CRATE!

PHARYNGULA: LOL
PHARYNGULA: SAD CATHOLICS ARE SAD
PHARYNGULA: CONCERN TROLLS ARE CONCERNED
PHARYNGULA: ANGER TROLLS ARE ANGRY
PHARYNGULA: HATE TROLLS ARE HATIN
PHARYNGULA: SOCKPUPPETS ARE SAD+CONCERNED+ANGRY+HATIN
PHARYNGULA: WTF! SOMEONE IS WRONG ON TEH INTERNETS!
PHARYNGULA: THEY SEE US SCOFFIN, THEY HATIN
PHARYNGULA: (Repeat above 1000 tiems)
SCIENCE BLOGS PHARYNGULA DATABASE: AAAAOOOOOGAAAAH! OVERLOAD!
SCIENCE BLOGS PHARYNGULA DATABASE: ERROR 500 SERVER ERROR!
PZ MYERS: WTF! NEW THREAD.

Act IV, Scene II
Catholic League

DONAHUE: DESECRATIN JEBUS CRACKER IS WORSE THAN HAYT CRIEM!
DONAHUE: EXPUL-SION-ATE! EXPUL-SION-ATE! EXPUL-SION-ATE!

Act IV, Scene III
Pharyngula Headquarters

PZ MYERS: WILLAIM DONAHUE IS DEMENTED
PZ MYERS: PHARYNGULA! HALP!
PHARYNGULA: PZ MYERS IS TEH AWE SUM!
PHARYNGULA: SAD CATHOLICS ARE SAD
PHARYNGULA: CONCERN TROLLS ARE CONCERNED
PHARYNGULA: ANGER TROLLS ARE ANGRY
PHARYNGULA: HATE TROLLS ARE HATIN
PHARYNGULA: SOCKPUPPETS ARE SAD+CONCERNED+ANGRY+HATIN
PHARYNGULA: WTF! SOMEONE IS WRONG ON TEH INTERNETS!
PHARYNGULA: THEY SEE US SCOFFIN, THEY HATIN
PHARYNGULA: (Repeat above 1000 tiems)
SCIENCE BLOGS PHARYNGULA DATABASE: AAAAOOOOOGAAAAH! OVERLOAD!
SCIENCE BLOGS PHARYNGULA DATABASE: ERROR 500 SERVER ERROR!
PZ MYERS: WTF! NEW THREAD.

Act IV, Scene IV
Pharyngula Headquarters

PHARYNGULA: ~~SECOND~~ ~~THIRD~~ ~~FOURTH~~ FIFTH VERSE, SAME AS TEH FIRST
PZ MYERS: HEY! SOCKPUPPETS! GET OFF OF MY LAWN!
PHARYNGULA: (REPEAT SUM MOAR)

TEH END.......?

Posted by: Owlmirror | July 12, 2008 4:37 PM

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/fyi.php#comment-980385

Google Search Meme

2008-07-12T08:47:00.000+09:30

snagged from

merlinwon
a blogging buddy on Live Journal

Type in what the questions ask you into google search and use the first thing that comes up as your answer.

1. Type in "[your name] needs" in the Google search:
2. Type in "[your name] looks like" in Google search:
3. Type in "[your name] likes" in Google search:
4. Type in "[your name] says" in Google search:
5. Type in "[your name] wants" in Google search:
6. Type in "[your name] does" in Google search:
7. Type in "[your name] hates" in Google search
8. Type in "[your name] goes" in Google search:
9. Type in "[your name] loves" in Google search:
10. Type in "[your name] has" in Google search:
11. Type in "[your name] gets" in the Google search:
12. Type in "[your name] eats" in the Google search:
13. Type in "[your name] can" in the Google search:
14. Type in "[your name] drinks" in the Google search:
15. Type in "[your name] makes" in the Google search:

and my results

Spike needs to give "Carpocalypse" to another station.
spike looks like a bubble about to burst
SPiKE LiKES blends sensible design fundamentals with exceptional creativity.
SPIKE SAYS, "The Man Is Not My Father!"
Spike wants the girl.
Spike does [the] right thing.
Spike hates chickens.
Spike goes to Venice.
Spike loves Luke.
Spike has wide economic impact
.Spike gets more macho.
Spike eats a worm.
Spike can copy word revisions.
Spike drinks at home.
Spike makes [her] bones.

Modded

Spike needs...another station, [another selection, or to change the channel].
Spike looks like a bubble about to burst.
Spike likes the sensible, [the practical, the logical].
Spike says, "This man is not my father."
Spike wants the girl.
Spike does the right thing.
Spike hates chickens [who lack guts and fortitude].
Spike goes to Venice [in her dreams].
Spike loves Luke.
Spike has wide economic impact.
Spike gets more macho.
Spike [has never] eat[en] a worm.
Spike can...revise [words].
Spike drinks [diet soda] at home.
Spike makes [no] bones [about it].

Revised

Spike loves Luke but she wants the girl.
She makes no bones about it.
It is the girl she wants, not Luke.

In her dreams, spike sweeps the young woman
off her feet and they fly off to Mexico for a holiday.
Or perhaps to San Francisco, San Diego, Montreal.

Spike has been accused of being macho,
called a bull-dyke, or a chicken before
but she does not shrug from doing the right thing.

She is sensible, practical, and logical.
She knows that when it comes to straights
the fantasy is better than the reality.

She stays home, drinking diet soda
and watching a corny movie where the heroine says,
"This man is not my father."

Sighing, she changes the station.
Then she takes out the latest manuscript
and revises the words. She dreams

of making a huge splash, an impact.
She dreams of making it big
in books and in love.

Marriage for ALL

2008-06-24T06:32:00.000+09:30

I think that the government should get out of the marriage business completely.
I think that anyone who gets married in a church, circle, synagogue, temple... that should be called marriage regardless of the genders of the folks involved.
I think that anyone who gets married before a judge...that should be called a civil union.
Both words should be interchangeable with the same rights and responsibilities.

But failing that, then YES absolutely-- screw this civil union/domestic partner crap.

MARRIAGE FOR ALL REGARDLESS OF REAL OR ASSUMED GENDER OF SELF OR PARTNER
It's the right thing to do.

No readers, this one is not about any of my obsessive thoughts about VESID sucks.

2008-06-21T05:40:00.000+09:30

Friday. Today is Friday. Friday it is. It is Friday today.
Friday is the day that mate and I go to the bookstore.
I got a Richard Dawkins book (passing nod to all those who hate him for being uppity, crass, and an atheist) which talks about evolution. I am studying my ancestors.

To those who don't know, I am technically an atheist along with being a witch, bisexual, woman, newly Discordian (yes dearheart, you do have to eat a hotdog without its' bun in a park on a Friday)-- Hail Eris, and an evolutionist. Oh yes; and hater of VESID (VESID sucks)-- I did promise an obsession free entry today didn't I, lover of my mate, the internet sleezy as it is at times, my dog and cats and frogs and trees and woods, defender of separation of church and state, supporter of civil rights for all civils.
So shoot me.

In the news: an autistic girl in Canada. Seems the educational aide went to a psychic who asked her, "Are you working with a girl whose name starts with a V?" (yes). "She is being sexually abused by a guy between the ages of 23 and 26." The school did the only logical thing-- Children's Aid Society was called. (Americans: think Child Abuse Hotline or D.S.S.).
Mom was then presented with a list of "behaviors" that could possibly constitute signs and symptoms of sexual abuse. Mom protested. Victoria is severely autistic. The Children's Aid Society fortunately was not willing to put stock in a psychic's tip. The report was taken and then quickly dismissed. Mom has sought legal advice regarding the possibility of lawsuit. Meanwhile, Victoria is not going to school. Mom is not going to work. The two are home together all day.

http://www.nationalpost.com/most_popular/story.html?id=597195

http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20080618/
psychic_abuse_080618/20080618/?hub=TorontoNewHome

http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=71516

http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/newstoday/article/329416

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hM0zeYRJKc_mp6Lk1JVDqVLIdwSA

http://www.barrieadvance.com/barrieadvance/article/108266

What stupidity! The "for entertainment only" psychic prompted this whole thing. And as almost always, it is the kids who suffer. Victoria was in a self-contained classroom with five other kids. She is non-verbal, entering puberty, lacks inhibitions. The principal interpreted licking a table and gyrating against staff bodies as being indicative of sexual abuse. Some people don't have the sense they were born with.

The psychic shold be prosecuted as being fraudalent, the teacher's aide should be fired, and Victoria should be going to school somewhere.

For dinner tonight-- pizza from a restaurant. Hooray. It was delicious. On the teevee, court teevee as usual. This morning-- dog and I walked our two miles. Mate has been ordered to walk two miles a day by his heart doc. Since he hasn't been or he is slowly working up to it (we will see) I've decided to do it for him. Perhaps he will have some benefits via osmosis.

I visited buddies on multiply tonight. The journals: live, commie, and insane-- will be done tomorrow. The miscellaneous ones: myspace, 360, paganspace-- Sunday.

I'm still doing second life stuff.
http://www.secondlife.com/?u=492430f4263844fdb2cb9ef952ebf4a1

if for some strange reason you feel compelled to join up. Don't bother getting the paid account. Leave me your secondlife name in your comments and I will contact you to give you the url to my secondlife home where you can stay for free.

I am learning 3D building and scripting there. Not to put too fine a spin on things, my buildings all resemble something that someone with brain damage would create. (Well, I do have brain damage. It's called "traumatic brain injury" in polite society.).

Tomorrow is run through the house wildly picking up crap and sticking it somewhere out of sight day. My dad wants to come up on Sunday if it isn't raining.

There. A semi-average post.

spike

A Murder of Crows - Volume 18

2008-06-19T04:21:00.000+09:30

My forehead is still throbbing as I sit here and write this today. I have been to the gym already, and it was a slow day there. Most of my gang didn’t show up so I got to get my workout in without much interruption, but as I sit here I am amazed at the pain that is coming from right above my eye. It will sound like a long story but it really isn’t. I think the whole event took a little under 15 minutes, but it felt like it was a lot longer, and to say the least, I am too old for it all.

Let me start by saying that this July, God Bless, I will be 19 years sober. It is a small miracle for the most part, but not too shocking anymore to any of those that had seen me drink. I was an unearthly monster that was full of rage before I drank everything I could get my hands on, and alcohol managed to strip what little conscience I had left to get the rest of my rage out of my system. Since the last day I drank back in 1989 at the ripe age of 19 {yep, you know you were bad when you never even made it to legal drinking age before the gig was up!} I have formulated the belief that I am completely and utterly intolerant to alcohol, and I have no control over it. Before I get all preachy here, let me say that this relates, because I also happen to have no control over alcohol in other people as well. For many reasons I also happen to be intolerant of alcohol in other people. Again to specify, I don’t care if anyone drinks and actually envy those that can quite good naturedly but I have never been able to tolerate those that let alcohol do to them what it did to me.

I have a routine. My routine is what keeps my day to day going along smoothly, and for the most part holds my sanity in for as long as it possibly can. It consists of getting up each day by 11, hitting the gym by 12, getting some writing done by 3, getting the kids off the bus around then, getting dinner into me by 4, and heading out to work by 5. The second part of my day consists of getting through work as best I can, leaving at 2, stopping at Dunkin Donuts for a large Ice Coffee {which I will keep adding ice to and drink from until it is water the next night when I leave work}, get home by 2:30, sleep by 4am, rinse, repeat. Anything that interferes with all of this is a burden, and that includes all of the doctor’s appointments I take the kids to, picking them up for sporting events, etc etc etc. With three kids there is a lot of etc etc etc. What really drives me up the wall are the extra things that really should have never happened at all, and especially if they are pointless. At one time rescuing raccoon cubs might have filled that bill, but I have grown up over the last few years and have incorporated “The Next Right Thing” theory that has allowed for “extra” hassles in my day to day.

What happened last night was not an acceptable “extra” hassle from start to finish, and my head still hurts so I am a bit pissy about it. On my way through the Dunkin Donuts drive thru there was a sign saying “Window Broken Come Inside” which I hate to do because it takes longer and my clumsiness often forces me to drop my coffee. Of course it is the only one that is open at 2 am so I haven’t really got my choices in the matter. I went inside and there was a crowd of sorts in there that appeared to be exuberant over the Celtics win over the Lakers, and had probably closed the bar they watched the game at. One of these guys was a belligerent Lakers fan that appeared to be barely old enough to drink if he was at all, and he was explaining very loudly to everyone about how the Celtics cheated. This is typical for a Lakers fan, because like their baseball equivalent {the New York Yankees} they have never actually lost a game in the team’s history, but have been woefully screwed repeatedly thus interfering with their perfect seasons they inevitably would have had. The entire country is used to this mental disorder and usually ignores it.

This is where I come in, of course, because I have never known what was good for me or prudent in the least, so after 5 minutes in line I ordered my coffee with this yappy little twit bumping into me, and shouting at everyone. When I finally had my coffee and could have made my big escape unscathed the little red Jeremy on the left shoulder said “Come on, be a smart ass. That’s always fun isn’t it?” and the little white Jeremy on the right shoulder had nothing to say about the matter. I said in an undertone as I walked by, “The Lakers had no business even being there,” and continued on my way. Hey! The truth hurts and all, but sooner or later someone has to educate the poor lad, and who better to do it than me?

The little prick wheeled me around and punched me hard in the forehead. The combination of drunk and stupid had interfered with his aim because I am pretty sure, looking back that he was aiming for my nose or my eye. Twelve inches of solid bone surrounding rock, was none to kind on the little moron’s hand, as he staggered back from what was probably 2 or 3 broken fingers. I barely noticed this because I had stars in front of my eyes and I think tears were probably welling up. I had dropped my ice coffee after all and that always makes me sad. Phase 2 had to be executed though because this little Peckerhead was about 4 inches taller than me and easily half my weight. To be honest with you, my arms were bigger than his neck, and I was rather pissed off that all of the mouthy assholes in the place simply cleared off and left us a lot of room. I am way too old for this shit!

It is after all the responsibility of the old to teach the younger generation things like manners, tact, and dignity, so I did end up grabbing the kid by his neck and dragging him outside while he started yelling in beergoggle about how I was assaulting him. As I had to wrench him from the door that he was clinging onto with his good hand I was starting to get really angry. When I finally got the twit outside I punched him with sober aim clean in the nose and he laid there until the police came and picked him up. I stood there smoking a cigarette until they got there and since the gentleman was a known issue in the area after sporting events the police just took my name and number and let me go about my night. They of course wanted to know if I wanted to press charges and I said no, because I was probably owed from when I was his age. It made the officer laugh actually, when he responded in kind. My head still hurts, so it isn’t exactly bragging.

I went back inside to get another coffee, which the girl behind the counter gladly gave me free of charge, and several of the idiots in there were cheering me, so I told them to shut it, because they were equally as embarrassing to me. The recent events probably made it so that the rest of the beer balls had been put away. I then went home and slowly poked around the web through my cloudy vision, and slept pretty good albeit with a harder time getting out of bed than the last week or so had been. Fortunately I have this little writing side line that I do, and I can find some humor in this crap, and am already planning on incorporating this into my article for my mouse fart this week. That drive thru window better be open the night the Red Sox win the World Series though ;8o)

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

Alex Barton, Asperger's and the MisEducation of the Public

2008-06-14T07:18:00.000+09:30

The family of Alex Barton, the little Aspergian misbehaving five year old kindergardener, has decided to sue the school district for his treatment by teacher Wendy Portillo. It is reported that although he enjoyed talking on television, Alex is still evidencing signs of trauma. An attorney from the Liberty Legal Institute's Dallas branch office states that the suit is not without merit. Public opinion as expressed at the end of another article-- published by the T.C. Palm on June 7, 2008 range from "Oh noes Alex will have to goto court and that sucks," to "Give 'em a buck and be done with it," to "Yup, there is a case there." The blog Thinking in Metaphors over at
http://autisticnation.typepad.com/thinking_in_metaphors/2008/05/wendy-portillos/comments/page/2/
is the place to go for a better understanding of the legal issues involved.

Autism, along with many other disabilities, continue to be misunderstood by the general public. Now I know that the general public does not have to understand every disability. But kids in a regular classroom should have the benefit of some accurate information. The real bother of the whole thing is that while "inclusive education" is the current buzzword, kids in general are not given any explanations about the conditions and disorders that may be effecting a few of their classmates. Thus a good friend of mine was left recently to explain Tourette's to his nine year old son. Nine year old was accused of not demonstrating an, uh, inclusive attitude because he had yelled "shut up" when a classmate kept cursing in the classroom one day. Apparently some regulation or concern about private medical information prevented the teacher from offering any useful information. The same reg or concern prompted the teacher to claim (erroneously in my estimation) that my friend did not have a right to explain Tourette's to his son either. Talk about insanity. If kids cannot talk about their differences, how are they ever going to come to an understanding of those differences? In my estimation, "Don't ask, don't tell" does not work when it comes to building community.

Now we have a teacher who decided to have a bunch of five year olds tell another five year old what they don't like about him or his behavior. Uncool for any child to have to go through. That teacher needs to find a different line of work. And in light of the lawsuit, the Florida school system would do well to inservice all of its' teachers on autistic spectrum disorder. Autism is indeed a broad spectrum of disorders. The three that illustrate a wide range of intellectual prowess and behavioral manifestations are classic (Kanner's) autism, Asperger's, and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (P.D.D.-nos). [There are two other disorders included in the spectrum which probably should be moved to a different category.] Having been forced to sit through a few "sensitivity training sessions" myself, my own prejudice is that they don't do much. I still hold that the information should be offered to teachers as well as to the students and their parents. It is at least a beginning. Furthermore, any teacher who works in an inclusive classroom ought to be dually certified-- in special education as well as in elementary or secondary education (or whatever their primary field is).

The general assumption that "all people with autism" are screaming self-stimming innocents and perpetual children is one that I personally am a bit tired of dealing with. Just last night on secondlife dot com, my avatar tried to explain to someone who was annoyed with my adopted cousin's verbal behavior that yes indeed Aspergians can be verbally obnoxious just like anybody else. The avatar to whom this short explanation was directed had protested, "He doesn't have autism! Autistics don't provoke people." Interesting how any of us can suddenly know more than the neuropsych people who have spent years in testing and observation and diagnosing of a variety of disorders and conditions.

Autism in all of its' manifestations is not something that needs curing as the Autism Squeaks parents would have us believe. Nor is it something that should be celebrated in all of its' aspects. If the Aspergian bank teller wishes to keep his job, he needs to attend to matters of personal hygiene just like the rest of us. An autistic adult who is not able to communicate her basic needs or desires certainly has a tough life journey that not many of us would envy or want to emulate. Similar things could be said of any disabling condition or disorder. There was a time when I thought that traumatic brain injury was the worst thing that could happen to me. Then it did happen through the actions of a driver who really should not have gotten stoned before getting behind the wheel of his automobile. Traumatic brain injury is not the worst thing. And autism is not truly the thing that needs curing. The worst thing is ignorance and it is ignorance that needs healing.

radical sapphoq

References:

http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2980678/29447288

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/jun/07/alex-barton-family-plans-to-sue/

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-0612autisticboy,0,5446826.story

http://www.libertylegal.org/

--
Posted By sapphoq to * radical sapphoq at 6/13/2008 07:41:00 PM

A Murder of Crows - Volume 17

2008-06-08T09:58:00.000+09:30

Today was interesting for me as I tried to get away for the day with the kids. I originally thought it would be a great idea to take a walk down memory lane and go to some of those places I used to hang out when I was a teenager, and show my oldest daughter that there was a time when her daddy was cool. My brilliant idea was predicated on the ideal that I would take her and the other two twits to Salisbury Beach which was one of the coolest places on earth when I first got my driver’s license and carried on being that until I was well past college.

Salisbury was just down the road from Hampton and the place offered a lot of cool things for any young male that was casually trying to pick up girls. There were 4 large arcades, an amusement park, food vendors everywhere, fortune tellers, a concert hall, batting cages, go carts, bumper boats, you name it. My memory of the place has always been fond as I look back on all of the wonderful memories in between being turned down by all the girls I had gone there to pick up in the first place. I figured that the kids would love the rides and games and other things that the place had to offer. We could then go to a few of the stores that sold souvenir junk and buy some cheap trinkets that would forever immortalize the wonderful day that we had.

Well as usual the best laid plans really fell short when we finally got there. I really had all of the warning in the world as we took the long winding road down 1A and many of the things that I had remembered were boarded up. The kids were ruthless in their assessment that “absolutely nothing cool” was coming up around any of the corners. The Funland that me and my loser friends would end our night at, getting rid of the last of our quarters clinking around in our pockets was a hole in the ground, with a pile of old rotting structures that used to be a mini gold course along side of it. I had assured the kids that when we got to the beach it would be a wonderfully fun place and to put it lightly I had nothing but shock when I saw the boardwalk that used to be Salisbury Beach.

There was still one arcade left anyway. It was pillared by all the Hispanics blaring loud barrio music and starting fights with each other. The place where the carnival rides used to be was nothing more than trash and caved in gates. I couldn’t even tell that there used to be rides and games there. All of the batting cages were just an empty lot, and it wasn’t even converted into a parking lot. What was the point, because all of the empty parking lots around it were nothing more than places for gangster types to do “burn out contests” and assorted other criminal activities. The sad part was that it was the most entertainment in the region now, but dreadfully not the type of entertainment that I wanted to take the kids to. The place was a total ghost town filled with nothing but lowest common denominator, and I hate to admit that because it sounds so elitist.

I imagine that it is a good time to point out that not every building there was caving in, or looking like it would the second you walked into it. There was one building at the corner that was the falling in building 20 years ago, and now it looks like a palace while the rest of the place is run down, boarded up, or completely blanketed by scary looking people. I remember when they were zoning it, and I have to admit that it oddly fascinates me how it thrives and the rest of the community totally closed up. I’m also afraid to bring it up, as it always brings people out of the rafters to defend it as well. The place known as “Tens” looks like a Mediterranean castle amidst the wreckage of land occupied by Serfs.

“Tens” is the strip club {gentlemen’s club sorry I got the memo} that was being erected out there about 15 years ago amidst much public speculation. The people that were being torn apart in the print media around here were up in arms because they felt that the club would destroy the area, and make it unsuitable as a family beach. At that time in my life I happened to be one of the people that agreed with the print media that it was a bunch of people who needed to get with the 90’s and broaden their beliefs and ideals. As I look at that ghost town that is obviously riddled with crime, I think that I was an idiot. I’m sure there are plenty of people that will say I haven’t changed, but that is usually their problem and not mine.

What I want to know is where the stories of, “Oops we were wrong” ever are? It’s the main reason that I happen to be a conservative. I am not a prude that needs to censor things. Heaven knows that I have written more pornography and outlandish behavioral issues throughout my blogs over the years to even try to fool anyone into thinking that. What I am though is a realist, and sometimes it is better to buck the beliefs of the “enlightened” then to suffer the consequences of what they get through. Those wonderful commercials for Foxwoods that just about everyone in the country has to endure should be a grand example of that one. The people who were against that were torched and called every name in the book and now there is a huge casino out in the middle of Connecticut with absolutely nothing else within miles of it, if you don’t count all of the caved in buildings. You’ll never see a single “Oops” story written about that, and there are hundreds of families just in the area that were destroyed by having a casino on their street.

Salisbury Massachusetts appears to be lost to the cause. I am fine with that for now because I can take my kids to York and have fun with them, but it’s another one of those forgotten towns that won’t be viable for another hundred years because people don’t want other people’s morality imposed on them. Las Vegas goes through this every fifty years or so, or at least so it says it does. I mean you can take your family there now and they can have a reasonably wholesome time, which is a far step from what it was 20 years ago. I mean as long as you stay on the strip. The murder rate is still much higher, and if you get off the iron path that the police set up, you probably will end up dead. Tourist murder is still higher there than anywhere else on earth, but they keep a wonderful lid on it. Don’t wait for an apology letter on it though, because it will come out right after the one that apologizes for the “known fact” that there would be a draft in 05. When those with power are wrong they are wicked wrong, but when they are right you will know about it in spades. Unlike when they are wrong, because those that know they are wrong will always be labeled as “wronger” ;8o)

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

Rachel Moss and fatties

2008-06-01T07:53:00.004+09:30

A big shoutout to my friend shamangirl over at LiveJournal whose post on Rachel Moss the woman who took her trolling from off-line to on-line for the lulz and then got found out http://shamangirl.livejournal.com/418980.html?view=817060#t817060
first made me aware of something that happened in Wisconsin. During a WisCon of feminist scifi/fantasy writers, Rachel Moss decided to take pictures of the obese women there and post them on the internet along with her opinions on the events at WisCon. Well folks found out and got pretty pissed and so forth. Angry Black Woman who attended WisCon threw in her hat on the trolling fiasco http://theangryblackwoman.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/what-rachel-moss-did/
as did Coffee and Ink http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/825950.html

Rachel Moss has a right to publish her opinion on the world wide wasteoftime [although it is less clear to me if she had the legal right to publish pictures of the attendees without their permission] and the rest of us have a right to out opinions on what she did.

My own opinion: Rachel Moss is a troll. And not a very good one at that.

spike

Face to Ass with the Past

2008-05-31T08:18:00.000+09:30

Mate and I were at the registers at the bookstore tonight. This in itself was unremarkable, considering that both of us are obsessed with bookstores and that our combined obsessions require our presence at some bookstore or other at least once a week-- even on vacations. I am not on vacation. I just haven't worked in over four years due to the car accident I'd had while on a lunch break at Running Sores, my last odious human servitude employer.

I walked past her backside. She was at the register closest to the exit. I sighed inwardly. I had no desire to say hello to this particular witch daughter of Abraham, chronically unhappy woman boss of the bosses. Her smoldering coal-colored eyes were concentrated on the associate as she was handed her own purchase in a crisp green package with gold words on it. I noted her hair, still the color of the darkest charcoal but now with a sprinkling of a gray storm sky. She held herself the same way as I remembered-- stiffly. Her torso gave way to her chunky rear end a bit too soon as her spine suddenly ran out of space. A certain indentation at the boundary of back and posterior was missing. She didn't see me or was doing an excellent job of pretending not to see me. I found that I did not want her to recognize me. A rash of swear words sprang to my throat. I held them back with the gravest of difficulty.

Mate was dawdling. I swept past both mate and my former adversary and sprang out the door to freedom. I continued my deliberate breakaway to the dark burgundy mundaneness of mate's car. As we drove away, I saw her getting into her own fiery steel machine. I did not deign to offer another glance. After all, two can play that game of non-recognition. Strangers. We were strangers after all and perhaps always had been.

The memories came crashing back. Boss of the Airhead boss, chronically unhappy woman with short practical fingernails that belied her poisoned fangs and a way of being. It was she, witch daughter of Abraham who didn't give two shits when my grandmother lay dieing in the sterile hospital room but who expected me to sympathize with her on the loss of a fat spoiled pet dog with which I had no natural or unnatural bond. It was she who had insisted on those dreaded Monday morning meetings weekly. Under the guise of concern about my performance as the house manager of a residence with three permanent staff out of a slotted twelve and thirty six on-calls filling out the difference, she harangued me over things like someone being two hours late on a Saturday. That particular on-call knew she was supposed to be there at six. That particular on-call sauntered in at eight, claiming that was when I had told her to be there. Obviously, I was the one who had to held accountable. There was no question about that. The on-call woman could not lie, would not lie. It was I who was responsible for all of it. Never mind that in spite of the chaos of scheduling staff, my people got to go out into the community and got to go on vacations.

I had just come from the hospital that morning. I was at the hospital every morning, every evening after work and sometimes dropped in at night. I had to make the end-of-life decisions for my beloved grandmother that my aunt turned out to be incapable of. I fought with the doctor who wanted to give her a C-T scan for cancer of the lung-- what treatment did he reasonable expect to be able to offer a ninety two year old woman even if it came back positive? I fought with a cousin who thought that a shot of B-12 would fix her right as rain. I fought with the nurses about the necessity of the morphine pump and the futility of a feeding tube.

My grandmother was screaming through the morphine that particular Monday morning about not wanting to live anymore with such physical pain. I informed the boss of the boss that I didn't give a shit about the on-call woman being two hours late on a Saturday under my current circumstances. I walked out. Back at the house, she called me on the phone and sent me home for a week with pay. I didn't want to not work that week. She said it was her last inch of compassion and me going home would eliminate the necessity of her gossiping about me. "I don't care if you talk about me," I told her bluntly after having screamed at her on the wireless phone in the parking lot of the residence about the fact that I didn't fucking care about staff being late on a Saturday with my gram in the hospital and all of that. "You do anyways," I said. "So what?" She was angry. I was angrier. My day staffer-- one of three permanent staff-- hid in the medication room, saying nothing much at all to me as I hurled the phone back onto its stupid black receiver and left.

Returning to work the following week, my gram died on that Wednesday before Memorial Day weekend. I left work, curtly informing the Airhead boss over the phone of the one hole in the schedule that Saturday and would she please take care of it. She didn't. The following Tuesday, the boss of the Airhead boss, chronically unhappy bitch harangued me about that hole in the schedule. "I told the Airhead about it before I left. I had to leave. My grandmother had just died." The chronically unhappy bitch witch daughter of Abraham raised her eyes slightly at the Airhead boss. True to form, the Airhead boss did not admit her own lack of responsibility that day. No surprises there.

When the Airhead boss ran into me at a gas station several months after the accident, I deliberately turned my back on her and walked away. "Don't turn away from me," she yelled after me. Bloody hell, she had turned her back on me. Which was worse I could not tell. The pretend recognition by the Airhead boss or the cold iciness of the bitch boss of bosses. I've had to decide not to care as I bit back the curses that waited for both of them. It hurt too much-- this loss of my career coupled with the insulting demeanor of the professional helpers over at VESID sucks.

I was not blameless. The two of them-- the witch boss of bosses chronically unhappy woman with her snooty way of being and the Airhead boss who was resentful because I would not go out drinking with her and the rest of her underlings my co-managers of group homes-- knew there was a problem but they were picking on me about the wrong problem. I was burnt out. I needed a change, a different job, a new start. I resisted that knowledge. I took out my hostility at Running Sores with the computer that suddenly appeared in the medication room one day. I spent hours on that computer instead of balancing the residents' money ledger or attending inane meetings at their various day programs. I'd send my day staffer to the meetings instead-- instinctively knowing that she would take over the reins of leadership for that house when I would be gone-- and I would kick back with a diet soda and the computer. The techie who was responsible for the running of the computer network failed to install any safeguards against what staff might do with a house computer. On that computer I learned things that I could not admit to anyone at Running Sores. It was not the staff scheduling that I should have been in trouble for. My real sin was left unnoticed. When pangs of guilt hit me, I would go to the local office supply shop and purchase another ream of printer paper to replace the paper purchased by Running Sores that I was using at a furious rate to print out my latest discoveries.

We had made an unholy triad during the last year of my employ at Running Sores. The witch bitch boss of bosses and the Airhead boss and I could not see eye to eye about much of anything at all. It was madness, this intricate dance of ours. It is madness still that in spite of everything, there are days when I want to go back to working at Running Sores. This madness should not be a surprise. Even the VESID sucks literature on-line admits that those of us with traumatic brain injuries may need a return visit to the last job as a way of excising the demons that insist that what we previously knew could still work, would still work. The nice man who did my neuropsych testing wrote in his report that I may need to be reassigned at Running Sores and that VESID sucks should provide me a job coach. VESID sucks would do no such thing. It was the shrink who saw that I was incapable of returning to the madhouse of Running Sores, even without knowing of the details of my last year there. I am glad that the shrink is familiar with the machinations of traumatic brain injury, that he could see what I could not see and cannot admit to even now.

"Doing more of what doesn't work doesn't work," is what I remind myself of ala Nathaniel Branden on an almost daily basis. I cannot bring myself to be civil to the various bosses of Running Sores on chance meetings at a bookstore or a gas station. I am flunking out of VESID sucks due partly to my own twisted hostile hotheadedness caused by my traumatic brain injury. I remain unemployed and unemployable. As yet I cannot forgive the players at Running Sores for being human. Can I forgive myself?

sapphoq on life

All Those Blogs-- answering a question by a commenter

2008-05-28T17:07:00.002+09:30

Yep, I do have lots of blogs. Too many.
I don't really have a daily blog.

The Main Five
Healing t.b.i. is about living with my traumatic brain injury, radical sapphoq is for my opinions on any current events that strike my fancy, life is for my returning memories, sapphoq n friends is a light-hearted blog (mostly), and sapphoq reviews is for short review of books and other stuff. Most of the time I will cross-post from the main five to other places. And almost all of the time I do not cross-post from one of the main five to another of the main five.

The Secondary Four
I also have blogs on live journal, commie journal, insane journal, and multiply which consist of the same posts for all of them and pull from any of the blog spot posts. Live Journal is almost all friends only because of the corrupt censorship which has been going on there for quite awhile now. The other ones aren't. Thus if you wish to read what I write on Live Journal without friending me, head on over to one of the other three. Friending me on one of the secondary four will give you a variety of posts. Friending me on all four of them will cause you to read four identical posts rather than four unique ones.

The Tertiary Two
And finally, I have a pagannation wordpress blog and a paganspace blog which I post to more irregularly than any of the others and again are cross-posts from the blogspot blogs.

The Abandoned Ones
I tried covenspace for a bit but didn't wind up sticking there. There are a couple others which I haven't kept up with. Oh well.

The Team Blogs
I am also a team blogger on several blog spots. Those posts too I pull from my blogspot blogs.
For some reason, my friend Jeremy Crow's blogaholic posts show up on my multiply blog. Not being able to fix it, I left the situation as is. He is a very talented writer and artist. The nice thing about the team blogs is that they aren't all my writing. I enjoy being on team blogs as much as I enjoy the singular ones.

sapphoq
On the web, I go by spike or spike q. or spike que. I am spike q. of sapphoq dot com. And I am also sapphoq. Just because. On all of the blogs I've listed, I register as sapphoq and sign as spike or sapphoq. There are several other nom de plumes floating around out there. Googling sapphoq may get you to a few of them.

this post
At the moment, this post is unique to this blog because it is a specific answer to a question asked by a reader. If someone else somewhere else asks the same question, I may provide a link or copy and paste this post.

spike of sapphoq dot com

Voted Out of Kindergarten-- Alex Barton

2008-05-28T11:18:00.000+09:30

The blond-haired little boy stared back at me from a photo distributed on the w.w.w. [w.w.w. = world wide wasteoftime]. In a parody of democracy in action, Alex Barton was voted out of kindergarten for the remainder of the school day last Wednesday. His crime? Having a neurological condition called Asperger's and some associated behavioral problems. The teacher-- a Wendy Portillo-- cajoled her class into voting. And reportedly had children describe what they didn't like about young Alex. One reported adjective was "disgusting." Two kids voted to keep Alex in the classroom that day. The majority voted that he be excluded. Alex who was just returned to the class from the principal's office for his behavior spent the rest of the school day in the nurse's office. Needless to say, Alex has not been thrilled about his experience.

Although folks on both sides of the issue have resorted to name-calling, what I find even more repugnant are the public comments which support Wendy Portillo in her actions. Her excuse ran something like teaching the children about tallying. I wasn't there but I have an opinion anyways-- bovine fecal matter to that. Was the teacher lying about the whys and wherefores of her ill-advised election activity a la Survivor fashion? Nah, she was just being reckless with the truth.

Yes, I know how difficult it can be to maintain reasonable discipline and order in any rowdy bunch of human beings. Been there, done that. Yes I am intimately acquainted with the cluster of symptoms which comprise Asperger's. Of course I know how aggravating it is to herd cats.

I also know the frustration of living with atypical neurology.

I do not belong to the Autism Squeaks camp. [Autism Speaks but not for me, a curebie organization of unhappy parents]. I don't understand why forcing eye contact is such a big deal to neurotypicals, don't wish to blend in, will not give up my passions, and certainly will continue to celebrate diversity. I hate all clothing that is not cotton. I detest polyester and nylon in particular. I don't use makeup or wear high heels. I used to stare at the dust specks illuminated by the sunlight pouring through a window. I was clumsy rather than graceful and the last to be picked for any gym class team. I have been accused of staring too long, daydreaming, having obsessions with the things that are of intense interest to me, being intense or too intense or thinking too much about weird things or the wrong things, eating food in a specific order rather than varying what is on the fork from bite to bite, eating the same thing for breakfast daily, not making small talk, not caring about small talk or the lives of celebrities, being a geek or a space cadet or pedantic, not fitting in. And worse, daring to be content with my own company and my own internal focus and my own way of being.

No Child Left Behind. One Child Voted Out.

radical sapphoq says: A huge phooey to Wendy Portillo. As an adult and as a teacher, I cannot believe that she didn't have other options for dealing with a misbehaving five year old.
While I support reasonable discipline and consequences for one's actions, I abhor what happened to Alex Barton. I sincerely hope that he will find a new classroom where he is valued for who he is, a teacher who knows about the issues that people on the broad autistic spectrum face and who has a better arsenal of tools for keeping order in a classroom.

Bev over at Autism Square 8 has an excellent list of who to write to should anyone feel so inclined:
http://aspergersquare8.blogspot.com/2008/05/not-special-support-alex-barton.html

Educate yourselves if you wish to. Here is a partial incomplete list which includes two news articles from the same newspaper in Florida and some other bloggers who are blogging about this crapola:

excellent thoughts about this whole mess
http://lastcrazyhorn.wordpress.com/2008/05/25/the-golden-rule/

Laura Hershey
http://crip-power.com/2008/05/27/thoughts-on-alex-barton-and-the-way-we-organize/

the politics of exclusion
http://qw88nb88.wordpress.com/2008/05/25/mend-the-link/

Amanda
http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?p=538

an interview with Alex Barton and his mother
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/27/earlyshow/main4130288.shtml

two Palm Beach Post articles-- links working as of 5/28/08
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/treasurecoast/content/tcoast/epaper/
2008/05/27/0527slteacher.html#comments

and
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/treasurecoast/content/tcoast/epaper/
2008/05/23/0523slclassvote.html?cxntlid=inform_artr

Labels: Alex Barton, Asperger's, broad autistic spectrum, No Child Left Behind, One Child Voted Out, Wendy Portillo

Legacy

2008-05-11T23:09:00.000+09:30

Her voice is papery thin, frailer than I remember, like her bones where shining out of her blanched skin last time I seen her. The message is the same. You have reached this number. Talk to the machine. Because you sure as hell aren't going to talk to me. You are my first-born. I despise the man who contributed the other x chromosome. You are grown. I cannot scream at you or beat you into submission. My legacy remains, tainting you forever. For that I thank all of the demons in hell and a few of the angels in heaven.

I manage to choke out a proper greeting. Say something inane. Here is my phone number. You can call me. I am grown. You are still my mother even though I have rejected your legacy and moved beyond it. I love you. Maybe I will come see you sometime. It's been awhile. Happy Mother's Day. I hang up. Mother's Day is a day of mourning. For what could have been.

She wanted. She always wanted. She wanted my love, demanded it, could not recognize it. I was a terrified child. I could not name the terror to my own self. I told anyone who would listen for a minute that my mother drank too much. No one listened. And she drank on and on. The scotch. After marrying again, the wine. The pretensions. She wanted to be Italian. She really tried. The only spices she knew were salt, oregano, parsley, and sometimes a bit of basil from the garden. She doled them out sparingly. She said pepper was made from little grounded up rocks. We didn't have a pepper shaker. Bacon had to be burned to a crisp in order to be rendered edible. I was a child. I did not always remember everything I had to get at the store. By sixth grade I was doing the laundry at the laundromat and all of the supermarket shopping. I learned to ask the produce man or a lady customer who looked nice to pick out the ripe tomatoes for me, to tell me which of the bunches of bananas I should bring home. I was a child. I didn't know how to do many of the things that were required of me.

When she was angry, her voice took on a vibrancy that is gone now. She screamed. She yelled. She threw a bottle of tonic water at me once in high school. She threw me down some stairs once, after dragging me on my stockinged knees across the carpet. She was the queen of humiliation. She pretended to call my nursery school teacher and screamed into the phone the horrible thing I had become. Years later, I realized that the nursery school teacher had to be dead. She called me a frig. Frig was her favorite word, a baptized substitution for the word fuck. You are a frig. Frig frig frig. Hit her Tony. I always thought of him as a jellyfish, yielding to all of her orders. He was. I was too. Not to be, well perhaps I would not have survived my childhood and adolescence.

She baked cookies. Sugar cookies from a recipe torn out of a magazine. They were good. She made drop cookies and cookies with melted chocolate pieces too. Mainly though, it was the sugar cookies. With lots of butter in them. She made a Polish rum cake once. She dumped an entire bottle of rum over it after it came out of the oven. The cake was so thick with rum that pressing the fork tines against it would yield a flood. In my blackened innocence, I thought an alcoholic drank wine at home. So as soon as I could, I drank beer out. I had forgotten about the beatings, the vindictiveness, how she made my poodle disappear one Sunday when I was visiting my dad. I'd forgotten how at restaurants she would delicately eat the seafood or spaghetti and delicately lift the elegant shining stemmed glass to her painted lips, pretending all was right with the world and that she had two shining daughters from the same father and those two daughters loved her more than life itself.

Every year for two weeks we went down the shore. There would be a house near the ocean, or once a cramped motel room which I hated for the lack of privacy. There were other kids there, down the shore on vacation with their parents. I learned to walk barefoot on the hot tarry street, how to smoke a cherry cigar once, how to dig under the overturned lifeguard boat at night and have a child's seance. J.F.K. if you are here, give us a sign. And the candle would blow out and we would dig back out of there with a quickness. We went to Bingo as a family, to the beach as a family, to a restaurant, to the boardwalk. My little half-sister and I rode the rides, were treated to custards, walked and walked and walked holding hands in front of the two parents who were busy weaving a public fantasy. I learned how to panhandle on that same boardwalk with a younger summer child vacationing down the shore. Mister, I need a dime to call my parents to come pick us up. And so we would collect enough money for a five dollar bag of weed. Then we would walk the three miles back to our beach along the shoreline, avoiding the gate where we were supposed to pay. The beach where we stayed lacked the rides or the matrons of the gates demanding payment. The cars at our beach had parking stickers instead. And there were gazebos instead of rides. And the overturned boats.

I swam out once, way beyond where I was supposed to be. The lifeguards sent a boat out after me. I was fine though, a strong swimmer in my element. The saltiness and the fresh air and the sun invigorated me. By time the boat got to me, I had already turned around and was halfway back. They did not insist that I get in the boat. They didn't yell at me for doing such a stupid thing when I'd arrived back on the sand. My mother hadn't noticed, or pretended not to. A small crowd had gathered to watch the aborted rescue. My mother continued sunning herself, reading a paperback all relaxed as if nothing potentially dangerous was happening. She didn't say a word to me when I got back and flopped on the beach towel. The music pouring from the tinny transistor radio didn't miss a beat. And I learned that silence can be as fracturing as a beating.

If I had to choose one word to describe my mother it would be vindictive. My mother is still vindictive, even in her senior years. The thing inside her that made her give away or abandon my dog and call me a frig and be late for the wedding pictures still exists. I do not pretend to know how it got there. That doesn't matter now. The knowledge of her vindictiveness does not comfort me. Yet it is better to know an unpleasant-- even cruel-- truth than to ignore it and pretend. I do not pretend that everything that is wrong with me or toxic about me is purely the result of her essence. I will not pretend that there weren't good times. It's just that the good times always ran into the bad times, that there was never any escape. After my physical escape, there were years of learning how to escape mentally.

When my mother dies, I will mourn. I will mourn for what could have been and not for the woman she was. I will grieve for a long time and I will carry on. Life is like that. Happy Mother's Day.

spike q./sapphoq remembers

It's been awhile

2008-05-11T04:01:00.003+09:30

What do you call the meatless soup that a Rastafarian is consuming while driving a motorcycle?
Marley Harley Barley.

It's been awhile since I've blogged here or anywhere. So shoot me.
1. I've gotten caught up in SecondLife:
http://www.secondlife.com/?u=492430f4263844fdb2cb9ef952ebf4a1
if anyone wants to check it out for some reason or other.

2. A close friend who is an addict was in the hospital and I was engaged in daily fighting to get her adequate pain relief.

3. I had a two week vertigo attack which caused more VESID stupidity.

4. I just needed a break.

I'm back.

spike

A Murder of Crows - Volume 16

2008-04-18T05:41:00.001+09:30

Ok now I have seen it all! I received this snail mail from a company called Quick Click Loans {www.quickclickloans.com} telling me that I am Pre-qualified* {note the * of course} for an unsecured loan of up to 2000.00. {WooooHoooo! Yay Me!} with the simple note attached …

Congratulations! We here at QuickClickLoans.com value your proven financial responsibility and therefore have pre-qualified {note no * … uh oh!} you for a personal loan of between $1,100.00 and $2,000.00.

Everyone needs extra cash so at QuickClickLoans.com our courteous and professional loan specialists are ready to expedite your loan request so that you can receive your extra cash within 24 hours.

You can use your extra cash for home or auto repair, tuition, or for any unexpected expense.

Here’s how to get started:

From the convenience and privacy of your own home … blah blah blah … It’s just that Easy!

Personal Loan Guarantees – Fixed Simple Interest Rate. Your rate of interest will not change. Loans have an APR of 96% {I’m not shitting you, they list this outright like it is something wonderful!} - Manageable Payments / No Prepayment Penalty. Pay off your loan anytime with NO extra fees. {Visiting the site will tell you that there is also no reduction in interest rate payment due to schedule, so technically if you pay it off the next day it would have an APR of 35,040% which is technically worse than visiting Vinnie and Guido for all of your loan needs}

They then show you a loan schedule – 1,100.00 = 104.48 per month for 24 months {It was blazingly obvious to me just looking at that how pathetic it was, but for those that can’t add up it is 2,507.52 for the 1,100.00 you get} – 1,500.00 = 142.47 {3,419.00} – 2,000.00 = 189.96 {4559.04}

Approval in 24 hours. You can be approved within 24 hours of submitting your application. {Well fuck yeah, once we have the type of idiot we are looking for we don’t allow them the proper “thinking time” to get away!}

Money the Same Day. If you get approval by noon, you can have your money the same day. Except weekends and Holidays. {See above}

The fact stands as I look back to when I was young and stupid {as opposed to old and stupid now} and I wouldn’t have gone near something like this. I am trying to understand the type of person that would and it just doesn’t register to me. I have a hard time believing that anyone who signs off on something like this doesn’t completely deserve it, but at the same time I don’t like wanton criminals despite the fact that “the law” states that they are not. The mental anguish over things like this could be stifling if people took it too seriously, and I don’t. I take advantage of a mental defect that I happen to have which is the difference between right and wrong. I also happen to suffer from a mental defect which fully supports vigilantism. The advantage of that flaw is I self righteously do things that would fall in the category of “wrong” but convince myself that it is for the right reasons.

I was rather upset that this letter came without a postage paid envelope so that I could cost them money sensing it back with my condescending note, so I decided that I would have to have fun with their website. It’s the only reason that I actually listed their website address {which I usually don’t do because I don’t want to give free advertising} because I would hope that anyone out there with a little time on their hands would assist me in making their business a real pain in the ass. I’ll start by spamming the hell out of the militant Usenet groups with their e-mail addresses, and work my way up from there ;8o)

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

Dad's Dilemma

2008-03-12T08:14:00.000+09:30

My dad is currently in the throes of a difficult divorce and may or may not be coming to live with us. I've spent the last week alternating between bouts of frantic cleaning/organization and vertigo supposedly induced by a "virus in the labyrinth of the ear" for which I am currently being forced to take Meclizine. Fortunately, I have found a housecleaner who was able to help. (And I plan to keep her on regular once a week as a result of all of this.)

Dad was supposedly driving up Monday or Tuesday for a day visit to check out "what's up there."

We spent Saturday driving around with Big Ed who helped up pick out an eight drawer dresser and a full-sized futon/bed along with two lamps. Big Ed also found a fellow to help unload the stuff. Husband put together the futon, lamp, and dresser-- rather impressive I must admit-- leaving me only the drawer handles to screw into place.

Sunday afternoon Dad called to announce that he was halfway here. I was instantly glad that we had set up the bedroom on Saturday. We scurried around like rats to scrap away the last remnants of sludge from the homestead. A couple hours later and still no dad.

The police department called. First thing I said without even saying hello was, "Is my father alright?"

Turns out his cell phone stopped functioning so he went to the police department. The desk sarge was good-natured and hunted through four log books before finding our address and phone number. We went down to the police station to pick up my dad.

Dad had worn a leather jacket. For years now I have been telling him that it really is colder up here but to no avail. We got him home and warmed him up and then went to a diner for a bite to eat. Husband lent him a warmer jacket. After dinner, we spent some time with the telly. The dog and the most courageous cat spent some time pestering-- I mean getting to know-- the stranger in the easy chair.

Dad slept in the bedroom we had set up for him that night. The next morning, husband went off to work. Dad and I went out to breakfast at the same diner, I gave him a brief tour of Hiserville, he shoveled some ice off of the driveway, and then he was off.

He doesn't know if or when he is moving in yet. I am not terribly interested in him spending another moment in the condo with my soon to be ex-stepmother but it is not my call. There was a bit of cognitive slippage that was noticeable-- "vagueness" is the word that husband used. I sure hope it is not some sort of dementia or neuro problem in vitro.

If it is, that just makes the whole divorce thing that much more horrid. In other words, dumping a mate because he got older and broker bites. Dumping a mate because he got older, broker, and may be showing signs of losing it is total suckage.

Oh, I know that it takes two to make a problem. After all, I am still my father's daughter. The only thing that stops me from telling my soon to be ex-stepmother where she can get off is my half-sister who is her daughter and really hurting about all of this.

spike

Whatever Happened to SpamBob

2008-03-12T07:53:00.000+09:30

I don't know what happened to SpamBob, the site that allowed you to create an email addy with the "@SpamBob.com" (or .net if you wished it to be forwarded).

The great folks at BugMeNot have partially filled in the gap. Goto http://email.bugmenot.com/
to created a non-password protected email addy "@bugmenot.com."

I will miss SpamBob although I applaud BugMeNot for branching out in their services.

spike

Pre Approved Credit Cards - Yea!

2008-03-11T05:56:00.001+09:30

If you are sick of getting pre-approved credit card offers, and other crap from Predatory Lenders then might I suggest a subtle way of getting even with them. I wrote this letter when I received 3 letters from Bank of America on the same day. One of them was to tell me that despite the fact that they rejected my credit application {that I never sent in} they had a program for people with bad credit like me. It was a Bank of America debit card that I pay a 150$ a year maintenance fee on. I was finally pissed off to the point of needing to be diabolical, as Bank of America will give credit cards to illegal immigrants despite the fact that THAT is a crime.

I devised this letter and place it in any “Pre Paid” envelope from an unwanted credit trawler that sends me anything containing a “Pre Paid” envelope. It not only puts a smile on my face, but you need to think of it as your Patriotic duty to stimulate the coffers of the United States Postal Service, and keep the costs down. It’s all about VOLUME my friends and I hope that any of you that would like to participate in this program to “GET THEM” back. Feel free to change the name, or leave the name.

Dear “Insert Name of Predatory Lending Company Here”

I am not actively enrolling in one of your schemes to separate me from my money, but wanted to send you this letter of Thank You, for determining that I am exactly the type of idiot that you look for. I am sure that Experian, Trans Union, or Equifax have earned their money that they had gotten from you to get my name out of its database as a certified moron. Heaven forbid that your wonderful company should realize that they have most of their databases totally incorrect, but who cares anyway?

In regards to your offer to separate me from my money, I have taken the time to deliberate the appropriate measures, to such a charming offer of an amazingly low credit rate, horribly high interest rates, and oppressive late fees and have developed this approach. I write a boring and condescending letter {that I realize hardly anyone will actually read}, use my 9.99$ a cartridge Kodak Printer to create the letter {at about 1 cent per dozen}, and use the paper that I stole from work anyway, to send you this reply. I of course am using the “postage paid” envelope that you have supplied to make sure that it costs your company money, and since I am sure your company will send me hundreds of these a year, it WILL add up sooner or later.

To further encourage the decline of your company profits I have also posted this letter to my blog {it’s unimportant really, but some really Predatory Lending Company friendly people will be reading it} and encourage any of the wonderful people that read it to copy this letter and send it along whenever they receive a generous offer to have their money stolen from them. It is after all the least I can do, as I know like yourselves, they probably don’t have time to come up with ideas to ~~get even~~ thank you properly for all that you do! Perhaps, in time, you all will be sitting on this end of a computer screen {if we all work hard enough on this end now anyway} and will need that little boost to get your own animosity towards people like ME out there in a more constructive way. Remember me.

Signed, your doting admirer, Jeremy Crow

Link

2008-03-02T03:38:00.000+09:30

http://www.commiejournal.com/users/sapphoq/19624.html

FryDay Five

2008-03-01T07:56:00.000+09:30

http://asylums.insanejournal.com/thefridayfive/

xo_tara_xo of insane journal's asylum The Friday Five says: Something's gone terribly wrong with the F5 entry.

I keep putting in the questions and all that come up are the answers. So I look to you for the questions...

Answers
1. scrambled eggs and bacon

2. 11:34pm

3. *$%#@!

4. Banana Peel

5. Jello

Alrighty then, here are my questions:

1. What breakfast do you never eat anymore?
2. What time do you think you will go to bed tonight?
3. What do you think about working for a living?
4. What do you never put into banana bread?
5. What can you fill a bathtub with to make it an inviting place to have sex?

spike

Wikileaking Wikileaks

2008-02-24T09:03:00.000+09:30

Any of you who have been following the drama over at Wikileaks will be glad to know that following this here linkage: http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks will get you there (a mirror site from Sweden) for the time being anyways. Alternate linkage outside of the United States was part of the original plan-- to have sites set up in various countries should the courts of one country succeed in getting a shutdown order. Here's another one, this one is based in England: http://www.wikileaks.org.uk/wiki/Wikileaks .

Wikileaks protects whistle-blowers from corporations (or governments) who would much rather not have folks tattling on any suspicious practices. Recently, a Swiss bank challenged Wikileaks and now the site is facing a court battle with the United States versus responsible exercise of the First Amendment. Bloggers across the internet have protested the February 15 court decision and this blogger too joins in the fray. Buzz-flash has quite a few things to say about this whole mess over at: http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1545 .

Quite amazing to me is that the court case took place in the United States. While the order to erase the D.N.S. from U.S. servers will certainly not hold up on appeal,http://commons.globalintegrity.org/2008/02/us-court-order-shuts-down-activist-site.html<--- here it is disconcerting that this case involving documents regarding a Swiss bank doing business in the Cayman Islands made it court on United States soil. Still, we are far better off living here than in places like Egypt where one can be severely physically beaten for dissident web-surfing and document leaking or in Red China or even Vietnam where folks have been imprisoned for similar activities.

radical sapphoqcross-posted all over

Wikileaks
first amendment
censorship
sapphoq

LInk

2008-02-21T11:16:00.000+09:30

I made a test called "What blogging site am I?"
Go check it out:

Http://www.testriffic.com/test/sapphoq/20910/What-blogging-site-am-I-

Broken Things

2008-02-19T06:31:00.000+09:30

I.

It was cold outside, but not that cold. Still, the ice hadn't fully melted and pissed-off-woman wasn't real good at maintaining an upright position on the slick stuff, even with the fancy smancy ankle braces. The dog required walking and so p-o-w headed to the abandoned building where the roof overhang kept a bit of sidewalk free from the troubling stuff. P-o-w parked along side the building so she didn't have to slide across the parking lot to get to the sidewalk in question. Three women, two golden retrievers, and one schipperke were heading for the same sidewalk. None of the dogs were attached to leads. Two of the women were dragging their goldens along by the collar and the third had picked up the schipperke and was cradling him in her arms.

P-o-w stuck her head out of the car window. "Are your dogs friendly?" she asked. The three women looked at her. "Friendly?" p.o.w. repeated while pointing to the two goldens and the schipperke. "No," one of them spoke up at last. Undeterred, p-o-w parked her car in front of the targeted sidewalk, where the small party of women and allegedly unfriendly dogs had just been heading. They turned around and left. That was their right. And indeed their obligation if their dogs truly weren't friendly and they weren't able to control them.

P-o-w hung the required placard on the mirror since she had just created a parking space. She hooked up the dog and grabbed Benjamin Copernicus Galileo (the cane). She locked the car. She and the dog walked. The dog was happy and p-o-w smiled.

II.

"Are your dogs friendly?"
"No."

"Are your dogs friendly?"
"No. We happen to have the two most vicious golden retrievers with us right here. And the schipperke is a little daemon."

"Are your dogs friendly?"
"We are afraid of other dogs."

"Are your dogs friendly?"
"We are afraid of you because either you intend to kill us or your disability is contagious."

"Are your dogs friendly?"
"We aren't friendly. We don't want to talk with you at all. Your need for an accessible place to walk your dog inconvenienced us."

"Are your dogs friendly?"
"We really just wanted to be alone in this wide space and you weren't invited."

*Epic fail*

III.

Pissed-off-woman stamped out letters in the snow. The letters read: F U c k U 4 J U d g i N g M E . She and the dog walked. The dog was happy and p-o-w smiled.

sapphoq healing tbi

Survivor Needs Meme

2008-02-18T13:29:00.001+09:30

SPIKE SELF-CARE LIST:

play with or pet or walk with the dog
play with or pet the cats
watch the birds at the feeder
sit on the deck
watch a funny movie

read a book
blog or write something
surf the net
computer art
draw or color

go to a meeting
call someone
call someone else
visit a friend
go to a bookstore or greenhouse

movement
hold a frog
take a bath
take a nap
meditate

ice cream
coffee
chocolate
power bars
diner or take-out

SPIKE WANTS:

to have oodles of money.
to travel around.
to write a book that is good enough to be banned in 14 countries and challenged in 2.
to continue living in a house that we own.
to meet more of my blogging buddies.

Rules of the "Survivor Needs" Meme:

Please link back to: http://survivorscanthrive.blogspot.com/2007/12/ive-created-survivor-needs-meme.html because that is where the meme came from. Marj aka Thriver created the meme specifically for survivors of any sort of abuse or assault, violence, etc.

List 25 needs and five wants. Needs are the things you need in order to take care of yourself, not a list of things that other people, professional helpers, critics, and in-laws think you need. Your wants list can be anything that you want!

Use this list to remind yourself to take care of YOU. It's nice to have other people around; however, it is not always possible. Those of us who call ourselves adults are ultimately responsible for getting our own needs met. No one other person can do it for us. Or: no one can be my everything. And I certainly am not looking to be anyone else's everything. We are all alone in our own skins. In my opinion, society as a whole needs to step away from the victim stance. Helplessness is a learned state and can be unlearned. It takes time and work. Anything worth having is worth working for.

Pass on the meme and tag five people if you want to. As usual, I tag no one. Even if you are not a survivor, you can still do this meme. I'm not going to claim that we survivors have the monopoly on pain because it just ain't so.

spike q. human bean

A Murder of Crows - Volume 15

2008-02-16T05:24:00.000+09:30

And then there was Roger. Am I qualified as a Red Sox fan to make any proclamation of Roger Clemens? I’m not really sure of that, but I am really sure that there is a circus going on in Washington that requires some sort of commentary from someone that has logic. I am not even sure if I have enough of that to deal with the situation as it is going. I know that I can shed some light on something tat many in the country haven’t really paid attention to, but has everything to do with the story. Roger Clemens was, after all a .500 pitcher when he left Boston if his stats for the last 3 years of his career here are to be examined. His 50 and 49 record over those years did not in any way dictate that he had the abilities to be the ace of any staff, much less the Boston Red Sox, and the apologists who like to point out that the rest of the team was lousy, aren’t looking at the job of an ace. Bad teams get dominating performances from an ace, and the Red Sox were getting a mediocre performance from theirs.

Most people who were not caught up in the romance of having Roger Clemens on the staff were thoroughly convinced that he was on the downslide of what was a great career, and he left Boston with a major chip on his shoulder. Who wouldn’t after being told that you were washed up? He went to Toronto and after looking every bit as bad as the general manager of the Red Sox said he would be for half of the first season there he transformed miraculously into the huge, dominant pitcher that he once was, only far more. The next season he won a Cy Young again being over the top dominant, and was sticking it in the eye of the Red Sox, which he deserved to do as he was reborn like a phoenix from the flame. Later on he moved to the Yankees to get the World Series that the Red Sox were never going to get him, and later on became the eternally youthful Roger Clemens that created a feeding frenzy every year as he would “un-retire” and come back to baseball for one last hoorah. Now he is involved in the steroid investigation, and everyone is taking sides.

I remained apathetic purely because I was jaded into believing that it was simply obvious, and Roger should have just made up a lame story about doing it 3 or 4 times and put himself on the mercy of the fans. It would have been over and done with and in 5 years they would have put him in the hall of fame, hands clean, continue. Instead he decided to do some of the most idiotic things I have ever seen, and what slays me is that people are still defending him when logic dictates that he is probably affected by steroids beyond the physical and probably mentally damaged. I would have ignored all of this if it wasn’t for the fact that prominent members of the political party I have given my heart and soul too over the last decade got involved. This is where it gets interesting because if I thought Roger Clemens was a dolt, then I would have to say that the Republican senators that he bought and paid for at that hearing were lunatics. I have blocked their names from my mind in the hopes that I won’t have to wash my eyes out with soap, but watching the Republicans acting like Clemens lap dogs was humiliating to me. The fact that tax payer dollars was spent on this is humiliating to us all.

In order for anyone to believe that Roger Clemens is innocent, you would have to believe that McNamee told the truth about Petite and Knoblauch but lied about Roger. You would have to believe that Debbie Clemens took HGH without consulting with the man she is married to, who happens to be a professional athlete. You would have to believe that Roger Clemens couldn’t remember the name of a nanny that coincidentally was invited to his house that weekend to talk about some things. You would have to believe that a man who throws broken baseball bats at people when they are running to first, or the baseball in general at their head when they “show them up” isn’t possibly having roid rage. I don’t believe that the Republicans sitting in that room believed these things in the least. I don’t believe that they ever have, and I don’t believe that I have ever supported any of those bozos.

Here’s where I part company with any of this in general, because I know that steroids is a major problem in the world, and think without general medical supervision it is a tragedy to be going on. These people that are searching for “the truth” to not believe the same way because the answers to these things are a lot easier then they make them out to be. Using steroids is a crime, and it is supposed to be prosecuted as a criminal activity. It is not in the least and it doesn’t carry the stigma of the loss of freedom associated with most crimes. I mean seriously we have heard about people flunking drug tests and facing a suspension, and it simply looks to me to be an associated “job risk” with no perceivable reason to NOT do it, and I have been rather rabid about these things for a long time now. My education in sports medicine brings me back about 20 years on this debate and I remember writing an article {that was not well received} about Shawn Ray back in the early 90s when he was stripped of the Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic title. He flunked the steroid test really badly and title was given to someone else. There was a long article in Flex magazine talking about how he hadn’t gotten off the juice early enough, and within a year he had gone back and won the title after cleaning out properly.

My reaction was black and white to this little “problem” that Shawn Ray had had, and that was that he should have been in JAIL! For the love of God, we had a man with a vial full of tainted blood and an admittance that he had been using illegal steroid, and there wasn’t even so much as an inquiry. I have been watching this whole “steroid issue” for the last two decades and as always it is just an “embarrassment” to these people to commit crimes and every politician in this country knows about it and has NO right to sit in judgment of it now. If Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds or any of these people using illegal substances end up going to jail for perjury then should we really feel bad for them or defend them? I realize that we are a nation of feelings, and not laws or common sense, but when do we place the brakes in? How am I to feel sympathetic about the children of the world and the bad messages that we send to them when we live in a lawless culture full of innuendo to the contrary?

I could care less what happens to Roger Clemens because I watched a deplorable human being, sell his own wife to the tabloids in front of the congress for no other reason then to save his own amazingly tarnished name. The senator that sat there and ranted that McNamee was a liar while Roger sat there smiling showed me beyond a shadow of a doubt that we have walked over the threshold of logic, and into the mire of spectacle for the sake of face time on the media outlets. Worse yet we have two political parties running the country, both pathetically corrupt, both damaged beyond repair, and we are at the mercy of them and the idiots that support them in lockstep. Blissful ignorance runs foul in both of them, and people are left wondering if we were not better off without a king. I only bring this up because I am sick of the princes and princesses that the media in this country are making for us anyway, and then desperately trying to tear down or bring up out of their own sport ;8o)

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

God Bless ME Damnit! - Volume 2

2008-02-14T06:45:00.001+09:30

And the saga continues …

It was now time for me to deal with something I will admit that I have ignored for the last two years. It was one of the few parts of my credit report that I knew was there, didn’t deserve to be there, and I didn’t have the patience to deal with. The credit agency now had me in the mood to start a war. A link from my friend from the land of Woodchucks brought me to a site that is totally devoted to credit and the legalities surrounding credit reporting, and law. I was amazed at all of the information there and set forth to use as much of it as viable on my quest to take on Capital One. Oh yeah, the great Satan of the credit card world. A little history on this one for those that have either been caught in the Capital One trap, or are peering into the eyes of the snake, would be in order here, so away we go.

After my second divorce, the ex took my kids, my money and most of my shit. She also took a majority of my paycheck, and the People’s Republic of Maine was there to do so every week. Oh well, life goes on, and I had to do what I could to make it by. My credit was terrible and my income was terrible as well. I took a credit card from Capital One with an interest rate of about 18 percent {which I hear is chicken feed compared to what they do now} and it helped me through all of the hard times, and I was never late on my payments etc. Two years later I was living in Mechanicville NY and I had two Capital One credit cards. A Mastercard and a Visa, because rather than giving me more credit they gave me more cards, so that they could get two payments out of me a month instead of one. That’s fine, I get it, and I was never late and I made all my payments. Simple story so far, but it gets complicated from there.

I had just sold my house and had plenty of disposable income at this time; I called Capital One and cancelled my cards after paying off the balances. It was confirmed and all was right with the world. I didn’t need two high income credit cards, so I went without them and used the debit card that came with my checking account. As some know my son burned down the apartment building that my ex wife was living in, and it was because of her neglect. I left NY {unfortunately} and moved back to NH to take full custody of my children, and I had to do it the day it happened before my ex wife took them all and moved away where we couldn’t find her. Long story, but she is a loser. I placed a forwarding address and dealt with all of my business in NY in one day, my landlord was fine with it and understood completely, my job was sad to see me go, but understood, utilities were paid, and I went back to NH and spent most of my money fighting the state of Maine for custody of my kids. The state of Maine being terrified that they were losing another one of the 80 percent of their population that lives on welfare, made sure that I was flat broke before I could win, but I won.

Move ahead 3 years and I get a phone call from a credit collection agency telling me that I owe Capital One 900 and some odd dollars. I was dumbfounded over this, and the person on the other end of the phone had no shame in telling me that a 10 dollar charge was put on the card and they added bounce fees and interest charges to it for 3 years. He pointed out to me that in my contract I had agreed that within 30 days of the account being closed that if a charge was placed on the card it would remain open. I was then told quite unashamedly again that they had gotten back all of the mail from the address that they had, but their mail was not forwarded, and that under the contract that was my problem as well. Now on top of my confusion I was incensed. I was especially pissed that they could find my phone number to call me out of the blue and never sent me so much as a warning that this crap was going on. I told him to stick it, and have continued to do that over the last couple of years when they call me, because there appeared to be no way out of that jam.

Last week I got the Better Business Bureau involved, and let me tell anyone reading this that most credit card companies have tons of complaints against them. I was told a few of the things that I read online last night, and used them to my advantage already. First and foremost I used their record keeping against them. “Show me proof that I owe this money,” is the first thing to say. 9 out of 10 times the credit card company in question has deleted their records of your claim the second the agency purchases the debt for pennies on the dollar. The credit collection agency doesn’t actually have any authority to the debt unless they actually are working on behalf of the company. Capital One didn’t actually just screw me in this instance, but they screwed the collectors.

By placing that erroneous 10 dollar charge they amassed what looked like a fortune to a collection agency for little money. The company paid Capital One 5 cents on the dollar for the debt owed at the time. I tricked the guy into telling me this when I was talking to him, but I will explain that in a minute. They ended up paying Capital One about 45 dollars expecting to have about 900 some odd dollars to screw me out of somehow. Even if they got it down to about 300 dollars they made a very good profit, and as Capital One had turned 10 dollars into about 45 they had made a very good profit. Pretty sick stuff huh?

Here’s how the conversation went as I called them armed with a lot more information then the average person has on hand. I pointed out to the guy that I would require the proof of signature of the fact that I owe the money on the original contract with their company name on it. He stated that that would be impossible, which I knew, but I continued by pointing out that I originally owed them 10 dollars on a closed account, but “might” be willing to pay them their acquisition fee of my account if they eliminate the poor credit mark but would require the original document with the sale of my account on it. He started giving me a spiel and I said {in typical credit collection agent fashion} that it was a take it or leave it on the spot, so I need to know the amount and will send in the amount upon my approval of the submitted document, but I had to know how much NOW.

After he cracked and gave me the amount they paid for the debt, I started laughing like a lunatic, and through tears said “Capital One screwed you guys, and you think I am going to bail YOU out? Take me to court so that the judge can laugh at how crooked you all are,” to which he ripped back like a child that this can sit on my credit report forever! I personally find it to be a badge of honor, and intend to call the collection agency once or twice a week to laugh at them and make fun of them. God lemons can be made into lemonade at the strangest of times. ;8o)

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

Viking Kitties

2008-02-13T22:29:00.000+09:30

http://www.rathergood.com/gaybar/
http://www.vikingkittens.com/

Autistic Kids Grow Up...

2008-02-13T09:05:00.000+09:30

Christopher DeGroot had autism. Because he reportedly would bolt from the apartment that he lived in with his parents Nicolaas and Agnes, they locked the windows and doors. Because they needed to go do things like feed their horses without their son, they left him alone in the apartment which was secured against his escape into traffic. Their 19 year old son who had severe autism was left alone in their apartment for several hours a day so they could go do chores. In my opinion,leaving a severely disabled man alone in an apartment without supervision is wrongon so many levels. Even if Christopher DeGroot possessed the knowledge of what todo during an emergency, the deadbolt on the door and the locks on the windows precluded any means to get out. And if he was unable to act during an emergency on his own behalf due to his disabling condition, he should have had a (hired if necessary) caretaker supervising him in his parents' absence.

On Sunday May 14th, 2006 the apartment did indeed catch on fire. Two family cats were saved. One firefighter was injured. 77K of damage was caused to the apartment building and stuff inside of it. Christopher, then 19, had to be airlifted to a hospital in Portland, Oregon. The burns covered 80% of his body. He died on Friday May 19th, 2006.

Nicolaas and Agnes reported to the police station as requested for questioning. They were charged with first-degree arson and first- or second-degree manslaughter. (Report of the manslaughter charges differ in degree). The fire was thought to be caused by arson, specifically by Nicolaas and Agnes DeGroot setting fire to paper in the middle of the living room floor and then leaving their son to burn while they left to feed the bloody horses.

Yeah, they had their day in court where they (via separate attorneys) were allowed to Alford plea the charges. An Alford plea means that the defendants admit that the State can prove its' case against them, but falls short of admitting any guilt on the part of the defendants. The original charges were pled down to criminal negligent homicide.

Two people testified that Nicolaas and Agnes De Groot were cool and devoted parents. Nice to their autistic son, caring about his needs, blah blah blah. The judge decided that the parents did not intend any bad vibes when they left their severely autistic son alone in the apartment without any supervision. He sentenced Nicolaas and Agnes DeGroot to six months in the county jail.This is a case that in my opinion should never have been allowed to be Alford plea'd.

Autistic kids do grow up to be autistic adults unless their uh devoted parents kill them.

spike

Parents charged with first-degree arson and first- or second-degree manslaughter:http://democratherald.com/articles/2006/05/22/news/local/news02.txt
http://www.cityofalbany.net/services/news_releases/show_item.php?id=521

Alford pleas and a sentence to six month in the county jail:
http://www.dhonline.com/articles/2008/02/08/news/local/2loc01_jail.txt#blogcomments

Christopher DeGroot
autism
manslaughter

A Murder of Crows - Volume 14

2008-02-13T03:54:00.001+09:30

This was the week of the telephone wars. I hate having to deal with creditors because they are in the business to make money, and I am not the personification of money. What’s worse is that there are a few companies out there that are screwing me, and a few of them have been screwing me for quite a while. Like most good businesses, they have been using the “Ivory Tower” approach to keep me from keeping more of my own money. The few of these that have made themselves the most impossible to get a hold of and rectify were on my radar and I just wanted to get it dealt with. Needless to say it doesn’t make your mood any better.

The very first one that I was intent on getting dealt with wasn’t exactly a creditor, but makes its money based on my credit. Experian is the credit monitoring service that always seems to be associated with any bank I try to join, or any credit card I try to get. I have the feeling that they must charge the creditors less and make their profits through extortion of some sort, because in my case, they were so wrong that it should have been easily resolved. It wasn’t, and it became a bit of a family joke over the years. I’m sure that most people would assume that it is just the case of someone that has bad credit and is pissy about it, but I have chronicled my Experian saga {knowing that somehow it would make some good info for others} and am ready to share it. Whether this is truly over or not, I don’t know but will explain that in a bit.

Over the last 10 years it has been very hard for me to get credit anyway because I am poor and I have been divorced a lot. That has been the reasoning that I have used, and figured that it made as good a reason as any. When I moved back to New Hampshire about 6 years ago other things started factoring in, that I couldn’t understand at all. I couldn’t open bank accounts for some reason, and was being kept out of the better credit unions in the area because of my credit report. Two years ago, I finally got a credit report sent to me after I failed to get into the credit union that I had wanted to again, and was shocked at what it said. Of course, here’s where the extortion comes in because YOU do not get the credit report that your creditors do in this free fashion. You get a watered down credit report with innuendo in it, but I was able to deduce a few MAJOR flaws that should have not been in there if THEY did their job. Most importantly was the fact that I had 4 social security numbers according to them. I also had several “Aliases” which included my father and my uncle.

I was furious, and took the several hours that it took to fill out their forms. I figured that the fact that these people that they had me merged with actually existed should have been reason enough to take them off of my credit report, but they obviously didn’t care. Last year I went to get my credit limit increased on my credit card with the credit union that I am a member of, and was denied. More over they took my credit card away from me because from what they deduced from my credit report, I was a fraud. The woman at the credit union was practically in tears having to tell me this because she had seen me come in every week and deposit my check, and confided in me that this happens often. She knew all of the signs of a catastrophic Experian screw up, but was impotent to do anything about it. I didn’t blame her, but I ordered another credit report which had included a few more social security numbers and an uncle that had never lived within 100 miles of me, and when he was within a hundred miles of me I was 8.

They had gone further this time, as they had my date of birth being 1939, and even put in my report that it appeared that I had credit from before I was legal age. A lot of the credit cards I had closed out on bad terms were actually closed the year before I was born. I was incensed and filled out the reports again. I have three children, no wife, a shitty job, no child support, a car that the wheels fall off, a bad back, and a credit reporting agency that is obviously out to get me. Realistically I came to the realization that I am not that important and they aren’t actually out to get me, or anyone for that matter. They simply don’t care if they get it wrong, which is a bit scarier because they are in charge of the credit worthiness of most of America. At that time I was a bit too busy working over time, and trying to get my own life in order with my sick father living with me to try to deal with all of that crap, and I was completely right at the time.

I’m sure that you all have seen the commercials on TV for Free Credit Report Dot Com, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Experian. By Federal Law {politicians create laws to look busy but never keep track of whether their laws are really being followed} the credit reporting agencies were forced to make it easier to get your credit report. They set up this site https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp so that you can “Quickly and Easily” get your credit reports and “Fight the good fight” with them. It’s a joke really because if the feds looked at it they would see that it isn’t very good. It will take you to each of the credit reporting agencies sites so that you can fill out their forms, and then they will each give you an erroneous error as to why you can’t have your report. Well I should say why you can’t have it unless you pay them for it. My battle at this time was with Experian so I went to Free Credit Report Dot Com {I don’t actually use the site url because I will NOT advertise for them} and gave them my credit card information, so that I could have my credit report.

This was infuriating to say the least. After extorting me into getting my credit report I looked at something that was amateurish at best. It had my name on it, with a string of aliases including my father and my uncle, as well as two social security numbers that I don’t recognize. It had places that not one of us have lived, and credit cards that I had cancelled many years ago that were just accumulating bounce charges. I don’t blame them for that, but will save that saga for the next blog. As it was Saturday, I couldn’t call and get any of this crap straitened out. In other states you could, but because the law in MY state doesn’t specify that they have to talk to me on a weekend they abruptly hung up on me. This gave me two days to stew over this. When Monday rolled around they wouldn’t talk to me because my credit report from Saturday didn’t have a complaint number on it and I would have to pay another 20 bucks to get a new one. I was abruptly hung up on again.

After getting my complaint number {by going through the cache in my browser … fuck them} I called them back and found no options for rectifying my problem, and was hung up on again for taking too long. I called back {this had taken me 2 hours by the way} and found a spot in the automated number pushing sequence where I could press 0. Now keep in mind that you couldn’t do that on every sequence, so I had to try it on each one, being hung up on with every one that you “couldn’t” use that on. 20 minutes later I was talking to someone, who put me on hold for someone else, who put me on hold for yet another, and another. It was precisely the amount of time that it took for my phone battery to die, but I was smart enough last year to get a cordless with two headsets. The fact that the guy was startled I was still there pissed me off to no end, and he knew it. After another half hour of explaining it to him he stated “Well obviously we have some erroneous errors on your report,” … NO SHIT! I was sent an e-mail confirmation later last night telling me that they had fixed the problems. It will cost me 20 bucks to see if they really had or not. Cancelling my Free Credit Report Dot Com account took a while too as I sat on the phone carousel, but made me feel better because I used a lot of foul language and threats when they tried to talk me out of it. Tomorrow I will hopefully find time to write about Capital One and Sprint. ;8o)

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

Good Mourning Stupor Tuesday

2008-02-05T18:22:00.000+09:30

Teens used to be given ice pick lobotomies. I once knew an old man. He was given one back in the day. He was a rebellious teen. Among other "horrid" transgressions, he smoked cigarettes. He still does. Years wasted on the back wards. Oh bloody hell. Shove him into a group home. The food is better there at least. Here's some more pills. We don't know if you truly would have needed them as an adolescent but you sure do need them now.

Every label is a catch-all. So the labels will keep devolving.

Briefly the nation mourns the fall of another pop icon star into the throes of mania.
Dressing without underwear is grounds for psychiatric imprisonment even of the the rich and infamous. I feel badly for her doggies. I weigh in on the side of animal welfare, not animal rights. I detest PETA and their dog houses for wolves campaign over at Penn's Caves. Evolution, anyone? The wolves came first. They didn't want the dog houses that you forced the owners of Penn's Caves to airlift/drop in. They pissed all over them and tore them up. And went back to their dens which they had carved out of the side of the mountain that is theirs. We have forgotten how to live. My feet have forgotten how to feel the nuances of bare uneven ground. The cane leans against the wall of a hallway. I force my feet to feel. I never gave a damn about the supposed window of improvement after a traumatic brain injury. There are no bars on my windows. Somewhere in a locked ward, a pop star is forced to put on underwear daily. Compliance has its' own rewards. If she is proper and placating and fawning, she may get to pick today's movie. If she becomes invested in the goals you have set up for her, she may get out in ten days.

Devolving from dogs to wolves, from dog houses to dens.

Neuroleptics have helped people to become productive members of society. Some folks who weren't able to work, who were plagued by hallucinations and or other rotten malfunctions of their neurology are now able to work. A few even manage to hold down real jobs, not the legalized poverty of sub-waged existence found in the sheltered workshops or T-projects. "It's better than staying home," the salaried proponents of The System retort. Oh yeah. Warehousing the different is good because society is judged by outward appearances. Shove the disabled out of sight. We the forgotten people-- fat people, people who hallucinate, curse too much, limp, are missing limbs, don't wear proper white cotton underwear, aren't properly happy about our situations-- don't deserve to have a voice. So a charity made up of parents sues an autistic teen for daring to mock it with her own website. These parents think they can speak for us who endure their sterilized tandrums. Some folks get diabetes or T.D. from the wonder drugs. Hard to tell. To weigh the good against the bad. For some folks with frucked neurology, the drugs are very very necessary. For the rest-- bright shiny pills with their empty promises of happiness. It's not happiness that the world needs now. And it's not love. And it's not bunches of parents coming out with bright shiny videos about how we have frucked up the family finances and broken their hearts. If only there was a cure for ignorance. For all of our shiny packaged advancements, we still can't figure out how to live together on this planet without blowing each other up into smithereens.

From grappling with tough stuff to neuropathy and smart bombs.

We need more research. More development. Psych drugs with better profiles, less side effects. The same care taken for psych drugs in clinical trials as is taken for all the others. The same attention to what is judged acceptable when it comes to side effects. What male teenager will greedily suck up any medicine that has "not being able to get it up" as a side effect? Only the truly insane. In the space provided below, list all of the non-psychotropics which have impotence as a side effect that we routinely administer to teens and young adults. Shrinks, first do no harm. Parents, saltpeter calms down raging hormones. Are you insane? We need to stop the guesswork. We all deserve more than that. Genetics, genomes. That is where the future of medicine lies. And once the neuro patients make room in the waiting room for the "psych" patients, we all might be better off. The N.A.M.I. mommies are WRONG. The vast preponderance of their kids do not need to be drugged. We are all wrong. Everything is neurology. Too bad the neurologists can't diagnose worth a damn.

Don't despair, repair.

My friends-locked Live Journal post about the so-called war on Christmas got flagged. Someone decided that my take on the news was an adult concept. Teens should be shielded from grappling with something that was freely available on Google news. Oh for crying out loud! I changed it back just before I put all entries save for this week's into private lockdown. SUP sanitizes the site, Aggregated feeds with advertisements and sponsored content pop into reality on the browser because sometimes we are oh so bored. We need entertainment. We are all excited now as we skate over to Explore Live Urinal. Uh, no thanks. Go sanitize your own toilet. The essay on the so-called war on Christmas can be found on other journal sites where the religious reich hasn't taken over.

I could have been great. Instead I am reduced to dead black words. I too piss on your dog houses.

spike

Once upon a time...

2008-02-03T22:48:00.000+09:30

Once upon a time, in a nice little forest, there lived an orphaned bunny
And an orphaned snake. By a surprising coincidence, both were blind
From birth. One day, the

Bunny was hopping through the forest, and the snake was slithering
Through the forest, when the bunny tripped over the snake and fell down.

This, of course, knocked the snake about quite a bit. "Oh, my," said the
Bunny, "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I've been blind
Since birth, so, I can't see where I'm going. In fact, since I'm also an
Orphan, I don't even know what I am."
It's quite ok," replied the snake. "Actually, my story is as yours. I am
Also blind from birth and an orphan. I tell you what, maybe I could
Slither all over you, and work out what you are so at least you'll have
That going for you."

"Oh, that would be wonderful" replied the bunny. So the snake slithered
All over the bunny, and said, "Well, you're covered with soft fur, you
Have really long ears, your nose twitches, and you have a soft cottony
Tail. I'd say that you must be a bunny rabbit."
"Oh, thank you, thank you," cried the bunny, in obvious excitement. The
Bunny suggested to the snake, "Maybe I could feel you all over with my
Paw, and help you the same way that you've helped me."

So the bunny felt the snake all over, and remarked, "Well, you're smooth
And slippery, and you have a forked tongue, no backbone and no balls.
I'd say you must be either a team leader, supervisor or possibly someone
In senior management."

The Show must go on

2008-02-03T14:50:00.000+09:30

I can remember the call I received, it was later in the morning. My sister had been trying to get ahold of me for awhile. When she did she was filled with so much emotion, she could barley speak. The news of our Uncle who was in UofM Hospital and with very little time left to what life his body had left to hold onto.
My partner and I had rushed to the Hospital as quickly as we could with our daughter. I got to see Jim, but as sadly as I am to say, it may have been too late. I said my words, to my Uncle.

I couldn't believe that this was happening. My Uncle shared his life with many in the community in the City of Ann Arbor, and I understood that since I was little. I was glad to see him, when I could. He was always there when their was important event in our life.
I have little words left to say that would go the depth of my Uncle. To shed some light onto who my Uncle was, and the difference he has made. I just hope those life's that Jim has touched through the many years of teaching, and directing that those people take this opportunity to pay it forward and treat the next generation as Jim treated everyone.
Every show is still going on, actors are still casting for that one roll to make the difference, and people are lining up to see the show that everyone is talking about. Which is great, as if
everything came to a stop that moment in the hospital, I could hear that the show must go on. For that moment I started to think we were the ones that were passed along.

I Support Anonymous

2008-01-30T10:35:00.000+09:30


The Chanology Project just might be true love do0ds.

From $cientology: Church of the Holy Censor Available at: http://www.whyaretheydead.net/mirror/xenu.ca/pickets/leaflets.html One of Scientology's preferred sayings is "Think for yourself". Why, then, does Scientology censor its own members? It all started on March 13th 1998, at the L. Ron Hubbard birthday celebration in Los Angeles. Mark Ingber, a Church of Scientology official, announced that Scientologists would be given an opportunity to sell Scientology books and recruit for Scientology through nearly-identical promotional websites (getting 10% of the money that these recruits end up spending in Scientology, but that's another story). To put up one of these sites, a Scientologist has to sign a contract. Here's a short excerpt from that contract: "If you wish to use this authorization regarding the Marks and the Works, you must: ... (6) agree to use the specific Internet Filter Program that CSI [Church of Scientology International Incorporated] has provided to you which allows you freedom to view other sites on Dianetics, Scientology or its principals without threat of accessing sites deemed to be using the Marks or Works in an unauthorized fashion or deemed to be improper or discreditable to the Scientology religion;" "Deemed improper or discreditable", eh? Boy, aren't Scientologists lucky to have someone there to decide for them what facts about their religion they can and cannot see. If they didn't use this filter, they might find out about the suspicious deaths in Scientology and the uncomplimentary things that judges have said about Scientology. Can't have Scientologists finding out the ugly facts behind Scientology, can they? So, Scientology tries, through this internet filter, to prevent its members from reading negative information about Scientology on the internet. This internet filter does 4 things to words and websites that Scientology doesn't like: The filter blocks a list of websites. Anyone with the filter installed can't access these websites, AT ALL. Examples of blocked sites include: http://www.xenu.net, http://www.entheta.net, http://www.lermanet.com, all websites containing information the "Church" of Scientology doesn't want its members to see. The filter blocks a list of newsgroups. Anyone with the filter installed can't access these newsgroups, AT ALL. Some of these blocked newsgroups include: alt.religion.scientology, alt.support.ex-cult. Since scientology claims it's not a cult, why would it need to block an ex-cult newsgroup? The filter blocks a list of words, that will be removed from a web page or email message. Some words blocked lead to odd combinations: NOTs and Anima are blocked, so "I'm not sure that animal is healthy" gets changed to "I'm ure that l is healthy". Other words blocked are peoples' names: Deana Holmes (a critic of Scientology), Bob Minton (another critic of Scientology, who appeared recently on NBC's Dateline). Why does Scientology try to prevent its members from reading about these people? What does Scientology have to hide? The filter has another list of words, that will stop an internet page from loading, or kick a user from an IRC channel (remove him from the discussion). If the filtered computer sees one of these words, the computer will stop receiving data through the present connection. These words include: Entheta (refers to http://www.entheta.net), xenu, Fishman Affadavit, Bare Faced Messiah (a critical book on Scientology, in the Books on the Net section at http://www.xenu.net). These words and websites are only some of the terms blocked by the Scientology internet filter. The whole list can be found at: http://www.taniwha.com/crack.list.html Some information sources, for further reading: Operation Clambake: http://www.xenu.net (Lots of information!) Canadian Critical Scientology Information: http://xenu.ca Occupied Clearwater: http://www.xenu-city.net Deaths in Scientology: www.b-org.demon.nl Church of Scientology Censors Net Access for Members: http://www.xenu.net/archive/events/censorship/

[end of copy and paste. N.B. this docu is available as a pdf download and is meant for distribution.]

In case any of you have been dead, drugged beyond recognition, or doing mundane things like working-- as a public service-- I am providing a brief synopsis of recent events. The Church of Scientology is considered to be a cult by some [including Germany] and has been blamed for a handful of deaths. A vid of Tom Cruise (remember him?) appeared on You Tube briefly. The Church of Scientology or someone over there didn't like this. Believing the appearance of this vid to be a violation of copyright, a takedown order was issued. Some pissed-off hactivists known individually and collectively as Anonymous or Anon declared a sort of internet war. This internet war apparently involved D.D.O.S attacks, faxes, and phone calls. Leafleting has also been carried out in select cities and more actions protests are slated for February 10th or thereabouts.

Warren Buffett approves of these goings-on and so do I. Sure, I am anti-censorship. And the folks of scientology have a legal right to publish their ideas. Protesting has a noble history. It is through protesting that some things get done. The message gets out. The meme gets around. The stuff gets to go surfing electronically. Well, okay some of the stuff that Anon is doing might border on illegal or might be illegal. I am not a cop, lawyer, or judge. Some other folks will have to decide all of that stuff later on maybe. Meanwhile, in retaliation at least one site where Anon hangs out was attacked in turn by an organization calling itself "The Regime." That particular site is now back up and in service as of this posting.

My sources are below. Many of them support Anon. At least one doesn't. And several are official scientology sites, as far as I can tell. Adding .nyud.net/ to the url will cause any that are loading slowly to speed up. spike

http://cominganarchy.com/2008/01/25/is-the-war-on-scientology-4gw/ http://partyvan.info.nyud.net/index.php/Project_Chanology http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,972865,00.html <----5/6/91 http://whyaretheydead.net/ http://www.factnet.org/Scientology/memorials.htm http://www.news.com/8301-10789_3-9857666-57.html http://www.news.com/8301-10789_3-9858436-57.html http://www.news.com/8301-10789_3-9858603-57.html http://www.news.com/8301-10789_3-9858956-57.html?tag=recentPosts http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,141839-c,hackers/article.html http://www.xenu.net/ http://www.xenu.net/news/20080122-OC_pressrelease.html http://www.scientology.org/ http://www.scientologyreligion.org/sitemap.html http://www.volunteerministers.org/seminar/index.html http://www.lronhubbard.org/ http://factnet.org/?p=240 http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/PROJECT_CHANOLOGY http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=5476#comments http://theunfunnytruth.ytmnd.com.nyud.net/ http://preview.tinyurl.com/2zvstv [Open in new window] or http://tinyurl.com/2zvstv [Open in new window]

All of the words below are either businesses which may be associated with Scientology or owned outright, or terms associated with Scientology.

Dianetics. Sterling Management Systems. The Way to Happiness Foundation. Applied Scholastics. Fair Game. Old Mayo. Citizens Commission on Human Rights. Concerned Businessmen's Association of America. HealthMed. Foundation for a Drug-Free World. The Drug-Free Marshals of Seattle. The Drug-Free Marshals of Los Angeles. Say No to Drugs, Say Yes to Life. Volunteer Ministers Corp. Religious Technology Center. E-Meter. Clear. The Bridge. Operating Thetans. Engram. Lead the Way to a Drug-Free U.S.A. Drug-Free Ambassadors. Golden Era Productions. Bridge Publications. New Era Publications. International Hubbard Ecclesiastical League of Pastors. Scientology Missions International. Narconon. Criminon. Feshbach "stock busters." Flag Service Organization. Fort Harrison Hotel. Field Auditor groups. Class V Churches. Celebrity Centre Churches. Saint Hills. Advanced Organizations. Freewinds. The Drug Busters. Food for All. Hands of Hope Quilt. Sea Org. The National Commission on Law Enforcement and Social Justice. Koenig photometer. Purification Rundown. Effective Solutions. Suppressive person. Disconnection. Linksfield House. Emotional Tone Stress Test.

My Friday Five

2008-01-26T08:07:00.000+09:30

Five Things I did this Week

1. I began reading "Jingo" by Terry Pratchett. I love Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. My favorite character is Death. Death speaks in capital letters and has a granddaughter. There is also a Death of Rats which Death allowed to continue on in spite of no need for same. The funniest book that Death was in was "Hogsfather." I am also a fan of the Unseen University, Carrot, and Granny Weatherwax.

2. I took the doggie visiting and we spent four hours in the woods. Human friend and I snowshoed, made a fire, and drank coffee. Doggie played with a doggie friend. She handled herself well. Although the doggie is mid-size, she prefers smaller playmates. This particular doggie friend is larger than she is. At one point, she was humping him. "You got it wrong!" I yelled at her.

3. I took a friend to drug court. She has to go two times a month. It was my first time in the smaller courtroom. I've gone several times to drug court held for the once-a-monthers and the two-weekers held in the larger courtroom. I support drug courts because I have seen the success stories. I also learn some things from listening to the judge interact with the folks who go there. The first thing I learned was "You gotta have a Plan B." This week I learned, "The brain has to be in the game or the journey will be harder." And, "Now is the time to be UN-confused."

4. I applied for part-time work and I have decided that I will aim for one company a day face-to-face until I find one. The stupid VESID morons have done zilch and I have decided that they are a waste. I am going to call the job handler on Monday and make an appointment. During the appointment, I will have her read to me exactly how many hours I am currently limited to working by the medical professionals (15), explain once again that my plan is to ease back into working via part-time work, and remind her that I was accepted into the 55b program and that I am waiting for a state job.

5. I made a bunch of new icons. I like doing computer art. I've got Paint Shop Pro 9 and 10, The GIMP, and Jasc Animation Shoppe.

spike