Did You Just Sneeze?

Ask your doctor about our new medication, "Kill-a-Cold!"

(Side effects include:  projectile vomiting, dizziness so extreme you'll fall down and break all of your bones, bizarre sexual fantasies involving toasters, heart palpitations, possible strokes, violent urges to murder your entire family and possibly your neighbors, suicidal tendencies, horrible infections, constipation requiring feces to be extracted from your ass with dental picks, loss of bladder control, bloody urine, genital yeast infections, uncontrollable discharges of intestinal gas, loss of hair resulting in total baldness, skin rashes, boils and pus-filled oozing acne ...)”

Moral of the story:  there is a reason why we’re one of only 3 countries who allow medical commercials to air on TV – they’re NAUSEATINGLY DISGUSTING!  Yet another nightmare we could get rid of, if only we’d overthrow Citizens v. United:  No, pharmaceutical companies should never have “Freedom of Speech” to fill our eyes and ears with any disgusting image they want to.

So I decided to listen to a few hours of “Supernatural” re-runs on TNT instead.  An effort to spare myself the hellish barrage of MSNBC commercials.  No sooner had I walked away for a sec to make lunch, I hear the gawd-awful Wrigley’s Extra commercial before I could mute it and started screaming, “STFU, you evil bitch!!” from the kitchen  Then the evil “Save the Elephants” commercial, and switched to, “STFU, Sarandon, you decrepit hag!”  Then the hellish Uncle Ben’s commercial.  (More screaming).  Same crap that generated my rant earlier, different channel.  5 solid minutes of The Soundtrack From Hell before I could get back to the study to mute the horror.  Every single commercial break, the same horror.  It never - ever – ever - ends.  There has to be some level of Hell reserved especially for ad agencies and media buyers.  There just has to be.

Why I Stopped Posting in Liberal Facebook Groups

The main reason?  They are so disheartening and sad.  Whoever said people with lower IQ’s veered off in a deeply entrenched conservative mindset (which is probably true – they are pretty stupid) obviously never read the fools on the liberal side.

I have.

Listen, there are plenty of things to be pissed at Republicans for, right now – and if you can’t figure out what those are, you’ve been watching WAY too much Fox “Entertainment” for your own good.  No one’s asking you to deep dive into CNN or MSNBC or jack off watching the latest pathetic bleach-bottled two-bit brainless whore (they’re all interchangeable) spouting their fear of anyone but themselves or whatever your current gripe is, but hell, just watch global news, national news, local news, until it hits you that Fox is all by itself out in “Propaganda Right Field”.  (And then ask yourself why that might be).  Answer:  because 99.9% of their stories are blatant and laughable b.s. (which is why they can’t call themselves “News” – they’re not – they’re legally called “Entertainment”) and everyone but you seems to know it.

That’s not even the issue.  I even liked a few aspects of the old Republican party, platform before they lost their minds – fiscal conservatism, for example, and keeping the national debt under control.  They lost me the minute they hooked up with the religious right.  I mean, let’s face it, the behavior of evangelicals NOW is mind-boggling.  The issue, Conservatives, is that Liberals can be equally as stupid as you are, and for many of the same reasons.  Both sides seem spectacularly lacking in a simple skill that used to be known as “applying logic”.

Many liberals, for example, seem to think that if they take back control of Congress in 2018, they can just toss all the Republicans out on their ears.  Really?  And how do you propose to accomplish that?  A whole mess of libs crazily decided that Joe Kennedy III should be the next President even though (a) he isn’t running, (b) he has no platform BECAUSE he isn’t running, and (c) they’re waxing nostalgic over the Kennedy Family (JFK and RFK in particular) even though no one else is.  Hey, there’s a good reason for you.

These are the same libs who basically went gaga over Oprah, although if you replace “waxing nostalgic ...” with (c) gee, they really liked her on TV!, despite her having an utter lack of knowledge, experience and political know-how.  They still thought she should run for President.  I ended up clutching my head and screaming.  Same liberals who swooned over Michelle Obama’s non-candidacy – she definitely isn’t running, but they all wanted to vote for her anyway.  None of them stopped and gave it any thought – they were just willing to push levers over totally irresponsible choices.  How do these people have the intelligence to pick a legitimate president???  They don’t.  And neither do the Republican voters.  We are so doomed.

The final straw was a ridiculous video (unsourced and undated).  Basic premise:  some girl went around asking kids a few basic questions, among them:  who won the Civil War, who was the Vice President, and what show was Snookie on?  The only answer they all got right was the Snookie question – they had no clue about the other two. 

Well!  Liberals went on and on and on ad nauseum about the stupidity of the American people and how all of those kids had to be future Republicans!!!  Really? Not one of them asked, “Hey, how many people answered the questions correctly?”  For all we know, 500 people knew all the answers except the Snookie one, and only the five who showed up on the video were the idiots!  No date, no source – they all just bought into the entire premise, hook, line and sinker, and pontificated condescendingly for days without applying even a second of logic.

I told them that they were twice as stupid as the kids on the video and why, and naturally a gaggle of hysterical women got all offended at being insulted.  After telling them all to go to hell, I signed off.  So much for liberals – liberal women in particular - being intelligent.

Utterly sick of that, I ended up on something else:  listening to “Destination America”:  Season 1, Episode 5, “When Ghosts Attack:  “Ghost Stalker”, and I end up howling with laughter.  Premise:  Some idiot kid is speaking with a ghost (supposedly).  He tells his parents about the conversation, they immediately disbelieve him and then lecture him on their god’s opinion on lying.

He argues, “But God is a woman”.  They back up from their own child, horror on their faces.  GOD IS A WOMAN?  He must have been taken over by a demon!”.  I fall over laughing.  They HAVE to be Southern Baptists, because only a Southern Baptist would assume the male is so superior that only that gender could be godlike ... which is either pretty sad or pretty funny, and probably both.  (See previous comment on evangelicals).

Back to the same complaint.  Same commercials, same insanity, if you include me screaming, “I don’t give a fuck if you have Type 2 diabetes, you fat cow!” over and over again.

But back to the ghosts.  I don’t know how you feel, but my attitude is pretty straight-forward:  I’ve never encountered anything “supernatural” or “ghostly”.  Does that mean such things don’t exist, just because I’ve never witnessed it?  Of course not; I’m not that self-centered and arrogant – “ONLY MY PERCEPTION MATTERS!!!”.  It just means I’ve never encountered one ... period.  But I do put some credence in the basic (although disputed) scientific evidence (via quantum physics) that suggests matter follows the expectations of the viewer.

Most of the “Paranormal Investigation” shows make me laugh anyway.  For people who are in their third, fourth, fifth or sixth seasons of doing it, they sure are easily spooked by weird noises.  Hell, I have never done a paranormal investigation, and I’d be less spooked than they are.

But it does make you wonder why there are so many programs covering the concept of ghosts, demons and the like.  Because they’re actually out there?.  Or because Americans need to let go of their idiocy when it comes to ghosts, demons, and the like?

Another question”  how did I escape joining the Manson family?  Besides being on the wrong coast, I mean.  None of the sycophants joined “The Family” with the expectation of murdering people, did they?  They ended up that way, sure ... but did they start out that way?

Bipartisan Hypocrisy and American Idiots

First is the hypocrisy ... I have a visceral reaction to people saying one thing and doing the exact opposite when it benefits them:  it makes my skin crawl, no matter who’s doing it.  If you think I’m directing that at conservatives alone, you’d be wrong; I have received a lot of rather hysterical backlash from people on the left when I’ve questioned their motives as well.  I’ve had to block a lot of liberals who have adopted the attitude that if I happen to disagree with something they’ve said, I must automatically be a “trump troll”.  And I’m not.  I just don’t like hypocrisy.  If you’re going to attack the other side for doing something heinous, make sure you haven’t done it yourself, first.

Second: the uneducated stupidity that runs the entire political spectrum.  A perfect example of this:  someone posted a brief video of a performance of Julius Caesar, performed as part of “Shakespeare in the Park”, in Central Park, New York City.  Change they made:  dressed the actors up in business suits instead of togas.  One of them vaguely resembled trump.  You expected the right to go freaking nuts, which they did:  “The New York Times put on a play showing the assassination of trump!” they yowled.

No, they didn’t.  They put on a Shakespearean play depicting the assassination of Julius Caesar, you boneheads.  But it’s doubtful that the right knows anything about Roman history, Julius Caesar or even who William Shakespeare was.  That level of idiocy you’ve come to expect from the right.  Not to mention that past versions of the character have resembled Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and they were all fine with that.  Hypocrisy again.

But the left?  You hoped the polls were accurate:  that the left in general were better educated than the right.  But that statistic didn’t hold up in the conversation that followed.  No matter how many times you told them, “Julius Caesar”, “Shakespeare” – whatever – their brains refused to kick in, either.  It was obvious that most of them just jumped online without bothering to read any of the previous explanatory comments:  “That’s terrible”, “I don’t like violence!” and (my favorite) “The playwright should be ashamed!”  Yes, from the left.  Funny, I don’t think William Shakespeare is experiencing a whole lotta shame over it.

To give you another example:

Tinkerbelle (“Tink”) posts a fake news post with the headline, “trump finally shoots pedestrian on Fifth Avenue and gets away with it!”  Without bothering to check any legitimate sources, Dolores Umbridge II (“Dot”) posts it again.  30 seconds later, there goes “Bossy”.  Anyone who stops and looks at the source realizes it was posted from Russia.

The very first comment on all 3 duplicate posts:  “Fake news out of Russia; don’t click on this link, it’s clickbait.”

And here’s what follows:

Poster #2:  Why hasn’t he been arrested?

Poster #3:  This country has sunk to the depths of depravity!

Poster #4:  Terrible!

Poster #5:  Unforgiveable!

Poster #6:  Despicable!

Poster #7:  He must be impeached – NOW!

Poster #8:  This is what happens when you give the mentally ill the right to buy guns!

Poster #9:  I'm not in support of this at all, it's absolutely wrong.

Poster #10:  Omg this is wrong in so many ways.

Poster #11:  Why did I get a virus when I clicked on this link?

Poster #12:  Folks, THIS IS FAKE NEWS!  Do not click on this link!!

Poster #13:  Why hasn’t he been arrested?

Poster #14:  This country has sunk to the depths of depravity!

Poster #15:  Terrible!

Poster #16:  Unforgiveable!

Poster #17:  Despicable!

Poster #18:  He must be impeached – NOW!

Poster #19:  This is what happens when you give the mentally ill the right to buy guns!

Poster #20:  I'm not in support of this at all, it's absolutely wrong.

Poster #21:  Omg this is wrong in so many ways.

Poster #22:  Why did I get a virus when I clicked on this link?

.... and it goes on, and on, and on, and on ... just to let you know:  some of these are actual responses to fake news stories previously debunked on the threads as fake news.

Anyone who thinks liberals are all much better educated than their counterparts on the other side of the aisle never signed on to Facebook.

Winter Misery, Hospital Trickery, Facebook Skullduggery and Ultimate Happiness

Fun with Winter 2015
It’s getting to the point where those of us who live in the Northeast find ourselves planning days, errands, trips, chores around SNOW – when is it coming, how much is expected, will public transportation shut down again, how well-stocked is the food and water supply, should I make up a last will and testament in case I die of a heart attack shoveling it ... the usual.

People are just moaning with the fed-uppedness of it all.  We’ve broken all sorts of snow accumulation records, and it still keeps coming:  one huge snowstorm after another.  We are all running out of room to put the snow we keep shoveling ... and we’re all getting slightly freaked out.  Our ability to do anything is becoming narrower, along with our focus.  For the moment, all we can see is the next storm, barreling towards us; all we can hear are weathermen, consistently apologizing for their reports:  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but ...”

We got Winter Storm Neptune about two weeks ago.  Blizzard, big snowfall, high winds, and luckily a holiday on Monday to dig our way out of it,  After Neptune?  “The coldest temperatures in a generation”.  I didn’t trust the MBTA to keep running in temperatures like that, and they didn’t.  Limited service, cancelled trains, the works.

But those cancelled trains in the evening – compounded by a manager who didn’t care if I needed to get home to take my anti-leg spasm medications on time – took their toll.  I can’t take the medication after 7 pm, or I don’t wake up on time in the morning; sleep right through an alarm held up to my ear.  I was getting home at 8, 9 and 10:00 at night.  I have gone without the medication for one dosage and been alright, but this was nearly an entire week’s worth of missing meds.  And apparently, that was all it took.

I got home late one night, was still in my coat and boots – and a dual leg spasm seized up both of my lower legs so fiercely I fainted from the pain of it.  On the bed, luckily; I was standing bedside when it happened.  Woke up six hours later – with the spasm still going.  Still in my coat and boots.  I could feel the spasms in my thigh muscles – and that hurt like hell – but I could no longer feel my lower legs at all.  I crawled my way into the shower – or actually butt-walked backwards, and that took me a while - scooted myself onto the lip of the shower and managed to turn the hot water on.  Kept the lower legs under a stream of hot water and massaged them until they finally released.  Crawled for the phone.  And called an ambulance.

If I thought I had nerve damage after that bus accident before ... I wish I had that level of nerve damage back again.  The 6-hour long spasm had to have shut down the entire nervous system down in my lower legs ... the question is:  do they just need time to recover from the spasms, or are they gone for good?  There is a major disconnect between my brain and my legs – doc says, “Move your toes”, and no matter how hard I concentrated on moving my toes, I couldn’t do it.

Fun with Anna Jaques Hospital in Newburyport
And now for the Epic Fail of Anna Jaques Hospital in Newburyport.

Why is it that no matter how many times you tell emergency room personnel what the issue you’re having IS, they – out of stupidity, deafness or arrogance, I’m not entirely sure – dismiss what the patient tells them out of hand, and then write down something entirely irrelevant and misleading in the file?  Do they honestly think they know my own body, and my own symptoms better than I do?  They’ve just met me for the first time – ever – and yet they completely disregarded every single thing I told them.

I had also – by fainting – missed the nightly insulin injection.  I had also – thanks to the aforementioned manager – missed an injection at noon time, because he deliberately scheduled a meeting with me (despite the fact that I’d be missing lunch AND noon injection) right before I had to deliver a 3 hour training session.  So, my blood sugar levels were high when I got there; I explained to them just what I’ve said here.  I also said, deliberately – loudly – repeatedly – “the nerve damage was caused by the dual leg spasms, NOT diabetic neuropathy.  The leg spasms are the result of a bus accident and spinal fusion surgery in 2010.”  I said the same thing to everyone I saw at Anna Jaques.  Over and over and over again.

They disregarded it completely.  Totally.  As though I’d never said a single word.  When I saw the file (a visiting nurse service caseworker showed it to me), what did I read?  “Lower leg weakness and diabetic neuropathy caused by high blood sugar.”  No mention of the spasms, the fainting episode, nothing – not a single word! – of what I’d said to them, over and over and over again until I was blue in the face.  Total disregard.  I nearly went ballistic on the poor caseworker.  Lower leg “weakness”?  I couldn’t even feel or move the damn things!  I have to seek treatment for the nerve damage, with THAT report following me around?  It’s dead wrong!  In fact, it was so dead wrong, it was dangerously dead wrong.

Fun with Facebook
New topic, but since I’m already in serious bitching mode:  there’s this guy who fancies himself a musician/singer ... (debatable on both counts), who I made the mistake of interacting with on a Facebook page – twice – so if you want to cite me for gullible stupidity as well, I certainly won’t fight you on it.

This is his modus operandi (and he did this the two times I interacted with him, so I’m guessing he does this a lot):  an entire conversational thread gets going and it’s actually pretty interesting, so you devote a certain amount of thought into what you’re posting.  But the minute you disagree with him, he throws a hysterical hissy fit, deletes all of his own posts, and what’s left on the thread after he does that is everyone else who took the time to thoughtfully respond to any of his posts swingin’ in the wind, responding to nothing, and looking like idiots babbling randomly.  Almost like a toddler in a playground who gets his feelings hurt: “Wah, wah, I’m taking all my toys and going home!” 

So now, you have to edit or delete all of your own posts to compensate for his childish temper tantrum.

Here’s my thought, people:  if you can’t have an adult conversation, don’t post anything that someone might disagree with – because people will disagree with you, that’s just the way life is.  I gave him two chances to act like an adult; he failed both times, so he’s gone from my world, at least.  But wow, that was annoying.

Fun with Sharers and Agree-ers
Last bitch of the day:  over time, I’ve gotten more and more irritated by that ubiquitous “Share if You Agree” nonsense, which seems to be attached to every Facebook post I see lately.  It’s at the point now where I don’t even CARE if I agree with you or not, I’ll be damned if you’re going to order me to waste more and more bandwidth doing it, especially when most people don’t even question the basic premise of what they’re “agreeing” with anyway.  Someone makes up a false media story (and it’s such an over the top media story that simple common sense should tell you it’s entirely invented, and yet common sense never manages to kick in for the vast majority of these mindless share-ers and agree-ers) – and everyone just hits the “share” button, like half-witted lab rats pushing pleasure buttons.

I have a mind to take that last paragraph, stick it in Facebook and order THEM to “Share if You Agree”, but I’m guessing the vast majority of those yahoos wouldn’t get the joke anyway.

Back to real life. 
I’m having to scale back, just to survive this.  I knew I was slowly uncoiling when I took a late lunch yesterday and was looking out of the restaurant window, idly daydreaming ... and then, after a thought, a phrase, an unexpected image, reached for my notebook to record more lines in the sonnet cycle.  I hadn’t worked on it in months.

I was thinking of “The Always”, the twin soul I knew I was still searching for, deep down.  The odd image went through my mind, the two of us as ... Neanderthal is probably the best word ... together, in a savannah grasslands, alone; I had just given birth.  And he, looking at the tiny, squalling thing I had produced, his head slightly tilted in curiosity, examining it carefully.  He knew what to look for; signs that it might survive.  I watched him do that and experienced a profound ocean wave of tender regard for him.  In the here and now, I found I had tears in my eyes, sharing that moment with the once-was-us.  I had an ache in my heart, missing him so godawful much, whoever or wherever he was now.  Then I shook the image free and wondered where on earth THAT had come from, out of nowhere.  So I wrote it down.

And Back to Bob

I’ve been slowly re-finding pictures from my “Bob Cowsill All Over My Wall” days ... for nostalgic reasons if nothing else, and I do remember this one.  Ohhh, how naïve I was, back then:  this one didn’t even strike me as an odd caption I was 12.  In the present day, however, I came across it again and spluttered San Pellegrino all over my monitor.  Ahhh, the innocence of the 60’s.  My mind must have gone seriously downhill and right into the gutter in the intervening years.  And of course I’ve since learned about photo re-touching.  Back then, I just thought, “Oooh, he’s got the white-est eyes ... I wish mine looked like that.  Must be all that milk he’s drinking.”  I really was a mindless little twit when I was 12, wasn't I?

I leave you with a wonderful appearance he made in someone’s living room.  Have no idea when.  Just because it made me smile – you’ll enjoy his surprised and delighted reaction at 17:50 when the small audience suddenly starts singing along with him.  And right now, I love anything that can make me smile happily and forget everything else.  I find this so amazing ... that after all these many, many, oh so many years ... he can still make me smile as though I hadn't a care in the world.  Who knows, maybe ultimately I don't, and I need to stop grousing over problems that aren't even remotely important in the vast scheme of things.  What can I tell you?  He's just special.