Halloween Jokes

a big shout out to *SnowRavyn* from sapphoq n friends

What kind of mistakes do spooks make? Boo-boos
What's the first thing ghosts do when they get in the car? Boo-kle their seat belts
How do you mend a broken Jack-O-Lantern? With a pumpkin patch
Who won the skeleton beauty contest? No body
Who did Frankenstein take to the prom? His ghoul friend
What’s a monster’s favorite play?
Romeo and Ghouliet
What does Tweety Bird say on Halloween? Twick or Tweet
Where do spooks water ski? On Lake Erie

spike manifesto

I am spike. I am who I am and not who you want me to be. I was never good at being what you wanted me to be and now I am even worse at it. So I gave that up. I have my own way of being, my own dreams. I have my own timetable. What you think I should be able to do by now means nothing in my world. I am healing. I am experiencing a remarkable albeit slow recovery process. Nothing is automatic anymore. Being on manual overdrive is the way it is for me now. I march, skip, dance, and fly to the beat of my own steel drum band.

I am spike. I don't "look" disabled. Casual observers do not recognize my double vision in one eye or my physical pain or my expressive aphasia which I have learned to work around. Only doctors note the hyper-reflexia and the ocular-motor dysfunction, sleep apnea and sometimes the fatigue that plagues me. I take naps almost daily. When I don't, I fall more on uneven ground. I don't like falling. So I've learned to manage my energy and to take naps. I can be a citizen of the universe on those days when I am not screaming with fatigue. On days when I exist in a swirl of fatigue, I need solitude and rest. I am comfortable with my own company. This is my brain, my life. Not yours.

I am spike. I do not care much for instructions on standards or how to behave properly or things like that. I compare myself to myself, not to some impossible standard of normalcy. I know that there is much to be said for blending in, for fitting in when and where I am able to. The world does not owe me a living. I intend to work at something just as soon as I can. Try hard to remember that a traumatic brain injury diagnosis means no open machinery, period. That test for factory work that you are dieing to give me is not going to happen. I cannot do it. I am not equipped to work in a factory. Nor am I able to stand on my feet cashiering. Any ability I had to multi-task is dead. I have not given up on myself. I am my own best advocate, not you. You are someone who is being paid to offer a service. I don't engage in false displays of admiration and gratitude when you the professional "helper" finally do something that is in your job description. You don't get to live vicariously off my back any longer.

I am spike. Do not tell me that "mind matters" or show me your stupid green rubber bracelet. I am not placated by meaningless empty platitudes. Do not tell me that you "know" what or how I feel unless you have had to have three sets of six very long needles stuck into the back of your skull in order to ease the severe constant t.b.i.-induced headache. We are all alone in our own skins. You better hope and pray with all the fervor that you possess that you never have to deal with the things I've had to face in the past almost three years. You may not be able to get through it as well as I have.

I am spike. I cannot bend. My body doesn't allow it. When I am able to work on the garden or rip up carpeting, I have to do it my own way-- sitting. Do not criticize my lack of speed unless you are willing to offer your help. I am not emotionally invested in doing anything because you say I should or at your whim. This is the way of it. I am also not interested in hearing any wangst about "how difficult it is to live with [someone who has] a t.b.i." I don't complain loudly about how hard it is to live with a neuro-typical. Take your wangst to a support group for families and friends. I claim my right not to listen to it and not to get caught up in it. I have no time for bullshit.

I am spike. I am not interested in your pity or your displays of affection. I do not want to be swallowed in your vampiric bear hugs or have the life sucked out of me by your neediness. I have no energy to spare. I don't care for your crises or your drama. If you cannot relate to me friend to friend, I will reject your overtures. Anger is my truest friend. If you are afraid of my anger, chances are that any interconnection between us will be limited. If you are looking to get me "healed" of my anger or want to convert me to your religion or your way of being, save your breath. If you want to be my friend, you must remember that I am living on borrowed time. Those of us who have a nodding acquaintance with Death are forever changed. I offer no apologies for my attitude. I am not a t.b.i. I am spike. I can be a great friend. Or I can leave you in the dust as I and my dog go wandering off into the sunset happily.

I am spike.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Hints for living

I declare myself inspired by both
ranting dyke: http://ranting-dyke.insanejournal.com/
and tigresslilly: http://tigresslilly.insanejournal.com/ .
Kudos and thanks.

Hints for survival while employed by a human servitude agency:

1. Keep looking for another more saner job. Sanity of existence is one benefit that you will never hear about at your human servitude agency. Sanity of existence is priceless.

2. Don't go to office parties or dinners unless you wish to be accosted by the c.e.o who absolutely must dance with you while the d.j. is playing "It's Your Thang. Do what you want to do..." and experience him shaking his thang. Alcohol does not account for all random acts of bad behavior.

3. Remember that you have a life. The other workers do not know this. Keep it up front. Say no to overtime. If you never say no, then your yesses won't mean anything at all.

4. The people you work with and for are not your buddies. When push comes to shove, they will rat you out in order to gain brownie points. Anyone who says, "Trust no one here. Except for me." upon first introductions should be watched.

5. You are expendable. When you wind up in a car wreck, the human servitude agency will quickly forget that you too are human. Instead, they will call you and argue with you about meaningless paperwork when you are sleeping 20 hours a day because now you have a traumatic brain injury. They will also fax you a safety committee form to the place where your mate works. The form will ask, "How can this accident be avoided in the future?" Knowing that the answer is something akin to, "Ensure that all those who get stoned are picked up by the magic bus instead of being allowed behind the wheel of an automobile," give the paper to your lawyer so he can promptly lose it. When you are down and out, the human servitude agency will not watch your back. You are an insurance
liability now. All insurance companies wish you would go away or drop dead and so does your former employer.


Hints for getting over your loss of a career after a bad car wreck and traumatic brain injury:

1. The helping agency which is supposed to help you get gainful employment that you can do is also a human servitude agency. Remember that. Do not allow any organization or person to take control of your life and how it's gonna be. Advocate for you. There is a high probability that no one else there will.

2. Get rid of toxicity, especially toxic people wherever and whenever you can. They are a strain on the brain. Become involved in disability culture instead.

3. To badly paraphrase the folks at http://www.biausa.org/aboutbi.htm , life is different after a traumatic brain injury. It is still very much a life. Celebrate life.

4. Surround yourself with cute doctors. Fire all ugly docs and replace them with eye candy. When you don't feel well anyways, pretty helps immensely.

5. You are not expendable. You are sacred. Remember this always.


9/11 came and went. I woke up wanting to cry. It is six years later. I grieve for all of us having to live on this planet and trying to kill each other off.

9/08 came and went. 9/8 is my birthday but not the day I was born in a hospital. I have been free from active drug addiction [including the drug alcohol] since 9/8/80.

spike q. itching for a coffee

Excuses

Excuses-- something that I think about quite a bit and guard against. Making excuses can be confused with that amotivational stuff that I fight with due to the t.b.i.

Do I make explanations for myself out in public? Usually, I consider things as "need to know info." The casual human being I meet in a store does not have to know that I have mild expressive aphasia. My talking is too soft but understandable even if I miss a word and find a similar one to stick in there instead. The jogger that appears down the street does not need to know that I might see him as having two heads, two necks, four arms, two trunks somehow connected to one waist like a morphed out hydra. [The double vision in one eye thing].

It is important for me to know when I am tired and to pace myself so my energy is more even.
And important for me to know when taking time for healing turns into a convenient sort of laziness and unwillingness to extend myself and get out there and job-hunt [again]. Maybe I can't do what I used to do. Maybe I can do something. Even if it is part-time, "something" is better than sitting home crying about my unlucky break and all of that. Taking risks is risky.
And yes, I have used my own t.b.i. as an excuse not to take risks because I am afraid.

The c-t scans and the m.r.i.s don't always show the extent of the damage. Mine showed the specific damage in the left frontal-temporal lobe but not the stretching of the axons that were part of the more diffuse damage. No way am I allowing radiation to be shot into my head [PET or SPECT scans] even if some insurance company would like to spend that kind of money.

The hyperreflexia and double vision in one eye,
the refusal of my eye muscles to move unless forced,
the inability of my eyes to work together or with my brain,
the borderline hearing loss [which has now cleared up],
the difficulty navigating on uneven ground,
the true photophobia,
the objective vertigo [not dizziness, not a balance problem--
the room slides to the left],
the pervasive lack of ability to multi-task;
all are things I live with daily.

I don't get to add those things up in an attempt to justify quitting. I don't get to whine about things being harder for me than the average person even if sometimes they might be.

I am alive and I shouldn't be. My car was rammed into a house at a high speed. I opened the one door that wasn't stuck and let myself out of that car. The last neurodoc didn't understand why I "walk so well" as he put it. My hyperreflexia is very high on the spastic scale. I'm glad he wasn't checking me out in the emergency room. Else I might not be walking today. I walked because no one told me that I shouldn't be able to.

I was lazy before my t.b.i. That didn't go away. I got another crack at life. Maybe I can do it a bit better this time. I hope so. I've got to try. And that means attempting to blend in whenever possible and being as productive as I can be in whatever form it takes. It means not blaming others for my problems. It means being able to see my self as a sacred human being, not as my symptoms or my labels. It means ignoring those who tell me that I am not able to. I can wallow in my self-pity or I can turn my excuses into determination to get back up again and get going. I have to keep striving. I am part of this society, a citizen of the world, and I intend to make my contributions to the society that I live in.

sapphoq healing tbi

Friday on the island

I woke up to a hazy day and a dog who was quite unwilling to take a walk for fear that we were going home and
leaving her behind. She'd seen the Bean bags and suitcases and assumed the worst. I dragged her to the tennis
courts and back.

We made the eight o'clock and headed up route one for Freeport. Once there, we ate at Stickey Buns [overpriced
but delicious] and then we browsed a few stores. I got a pair of fuzzy socks for lounging around in. We walked
around Beans too, neither one of us purchasing anything there. The L.L. Bean's staff are trained to ask everyone
they walk into how they "are." What if I told them the truth?

The truth is husband's oldest sister asked us the other day if we wouldn't want to go with her mother to some rock
city in Jordan or somewheres in October on a tour. Not having the money to drop, we said no. Does it dawn on
these people ever that we have not had an easy time of this for the past three and a half years or so since my car
accident? I'm on disability. I've got no job. My prospects are thin. Running Sores is not exactly telling
anyone that I was golden. I'm being pressured to work full-time and I don't even know if I can manage a part-time
unless I wind up working for myself. I interviewed for an aide position at a t.b.i. day program and possibly even
to sub as a kitchen helper or at a group home. Dude claimed I have to be able to lift for their group homes. I
know they got some where no, one does not need to lift. No dice. I can't even get an interview for delivering
newspapers or working at a store for cripes sakes. Where are we supposed to pull this money from to go on such
a trip in October? Out of our asses? I'm too old to be a prostitute.

After escaping the clutches of Freeport, husband drove us down to Portland so we could eat lunch [overpriced but
delicious] and go to the comics shop. Then a run to the supermarket for him and the Goodwill for me and back to
the island on the two o'clock boat.

The dog was happy to see me and I was happy to see her. Husband's cousin had arrived on island and stopped by to
talk to me. I like her well enough. We click and she doesn't roll her eyes in horror at the thought of surfing
the net or having a computer art program. One of the great things about her is that she is not afraid of the words
traumatic brain injury. [The rest of husband's family dwells on my back injuries which by far is the least of my
troubles at the moment. My father didn't even tell his side of the family that I'd had a car accident]. Cousin
happened to mention the same trip to Jordan. She and her husband will also be going. Mother-in-law has been
complaining about 8-12K she needs for roof work to be done on this cottage in the spring of '08. Bloody hell, why
not go to Jordan?

Mother-in-law has been having stream-of-consciousness over-idealized monologues about her perfect life lately. The
topic over dinner [chicken for me, salmon for them, stringbeans, corn on the cob, and tomato slices for all] was her
very own perfect diet and she eats salt and butter and still manages to keep her weight the same. That along with
the idyllic farm that her mum grew up on and that she visited. I was not having an easy time of things. I cannot
seem to lose weight and barely manage to stay around the same weight. And she has a perfect life and a perfect
upbringing and a perfect everything and perfect trips to England and one other exotic location every year.

I am tired of having to start at the bottom with the job thing. I have been told over and over how smart I am, how
much talent I have and I know these things. The tragedy is that I have not been able to sell myself into a position
of money. It's always start at the bottom, work my way up. My working experience seems always to count for naught.
So with the last job, starting at the bottom once again, I worked my way up and then along comes a moron who had to
get high before driving and there went my well-paying career. I hated it anyway. But this? An insult to my life
once again. I am tired of having to pay for what other people do. I am angry. Seething. In a rage over it and
I cannot find my way home.

After the meeting tonight was reading, computer time, this bitchy synopsis, listening to the neighbor's drunken kids
peel up and down the road, and bed.

spike