Obligatory (Inappropriate) Olympics Post

If you have been following me on Twitter, you may have noticed that I am watching the Olympics. I am expanding on my commentary here, though, for your hopeful amusement.

Check in on Getglue: Olympics Opening Ceremony fattieart- I'm only here for Voldie vs. Mary Poppins.

I have no idea what this pommel horse shit is supposed to look like. They just remind me of fancy paraplegics. #inappropriate #olympics

Honestly, their legs going all twirly and stuff freaks me out, and my research tells me that paraplegics actually can and do compete in pommel horse exercises, so I feel slightly less like an ass for my observation.

Yeah, I know. I'm sorry.

I usually like fat boys, but I wouldn't kick these swimmers out of my bed. #olympics #perving

Unless they were jumping on it, because that is just annoying.

I hate volleyball. I'm watching it, because it is on, but I still suffer from face:ball related PTSD from my high school years. #olympics

When I was in high school, the only sports my school had was basketball and volleyball. Our lunch period was an hour and twenty minutes and often, after people ate (or before) they would play volleyball in the courtyard. I liked a boy on the volleyball team and no matter where I sat to watch him play, without fail, the ball would come soaring at me and hit me in the face*.  It's like my face was a ball magnet. I think I stopped liking the boy just so I wouldn't have to watch him play anymore.

*That was also the year that my dad taught me that you could kill a person by jambing your palm into their nose, so I was particularly afraid that the ball would hit me that way and kill me.

Does gymnastics cause sexual excitation, or are all the male gymnasts wearing erection shaped cups? #inappropriate #olympics


Seriously, have you seen this? It's like wang central up in the gymnastics competition.



I am seriously in awe of these amazing athletes though, and I think they are all awesome. Their talent is beyond anything that I would have the dedication to do. I can hardly talk myself into brushing my teeth, let alone training for years to be the glowing unicorns of sports that they are!

That Unfunny, Un-illustrated, TMI Post.

So, I have this medical procedure on Thursday morning that I have been waiting for for 4 months now, and I've hinted at it, but I haven't really written about it, mostly because I don't feel like illustrating it, and also because it is not terribly funny.

My bladder and its bad behavior has been a subject of this blarg before, and I have been waiting all this time for an appointment to have it looked at to make sure that the bad thing it is doing is not cancer.  This is honestly the first time that doctors have ever actually said to me, without my input, "Well, it could well be cancer. We're checking for bladder cancer."

(I'm going into details here so you might want to just skip to the bottom if you get squeamish...)

I am guessing it isn't. My hunch is that I have another chronic disease and that it isn't life threatening and will just be a painful annoyance for the rest of my life. Better, but not by a huge margin.

But they want to do more than just looking inside my bladder.  When I went to my first appointment with the urologist, the very nice nurse was tasked with catheterizing me to get an unadulterated sample of my pee to test it, once again, to make sure the problem wasn't an infection. She very kindly told me everything that she was doing before she even touched me.

She calmly let me know. "I'm inserting the catheter now. I'm not going to hurt you."
To which I laughed and replied "I think you're a damned liar!" because she was a damned liar and she scraped half the length of my urethra with the catheter. I peed a lot of blood for the rest of the day. It was like paying someone to give me the worst UTI of my life.
She was still a lovely person though. Then she exclaimed, "Your urethra is TINY! The doctor will dilate that for you when he does the cystoscope."
And I said, "Okay" because I didn't have access to the internet while I was in the office to find out exactly what "Urethral Dilation" entails.

Remember how freaked out I was at having my eyeballs touched?  Yeah, I am at least 600% less pleased about having graduated tubes inserted into my pee hole to make it bigger.  I figure it is just fine how it is.  She said it would help me pee better, but I think I have been peeing in an efficient and frequent manner for almost 36 years and I am of the opinion that they should leave well enough alone.

Also, everything I have read says that patients are usually put out for cystoscopes, yet, my doctor plans on doing it while I am completely awake and aware, and seeing as my guts betray me when I am nervous, and I have fibromyalgia, so my nerves are like super mega-ly more sensitive to pain than other people's, I am afraid that there is a chance that I am going to poop on the doctor. I would be afraid of kicking someone too, to stop the pain, because I am a kicker, but I have seen the table they are going to do the procedure on, and it has straps to immobilize my legs, which means they KNOW that I am going to want to kick them in the faces.

And I assume (but don't know if) they are going to somehow anesthetize the parts of my pee system that they will be futzing with, but OMG, what if they need to do biopsies!? I just want them to put me to sleep for this.

And then there is the bladder stretching, which might be on the docket also, because they made me measure my urinary habits with a pilgrim's hat, and it seems the most my bladder holds is 8-10 ounces, where the normal person's bladder holds double that. And I read that they sometimes do that to treat overactive bladder stuff... and I also read that some people who have had urethral dilation, and bladder stretching are in pain for the rest of their lives.

Anyway, I am not entirely sure what will happen to my bladder, and not knowing things I want to know stresses me out. Not knowing, for 4 months, whether the bleeding in my bladder is cancer has made me much less jovial and desirous of writing and illustrating. Though they keep trying to reschedule on me (it has been moved twice now- they tried to cancel again today, but agreed to just do it an hour and a half earlier- and I had to wait two months for my first visit knowing that my general practitioner wanted me seen right away, also concerned about cancer) I am hoping there will be some sort of KNOWN by the end of this week, and I can stop worrying all the time and go back to seeing funny things everywhere, all the time.

In all, this has been going on for almost a year, if not longer. I'm scared, and I'm nervous, and I don't want to endure more pain. I want my normal life back. I don't want to worry about this any more, so no matter how scared I am, I need to go through with it and get it over with so I can have an answer and start treating my stupid jerk bladder. But I am not looking forward to it, and it sucks, and I want to magically be better so I can go back to just being funny.


P.S. I want kittens and hamsters and goats to hug. I think that would make me feel better. Please send a petting zoo immediately.

Rush's Bain Conspiracy Goes Deeper!

It was reported that Rush Limbaugh made the claim that the character Bane (who was featured in the 1993 DC Batman Comics) was created to be the villain in "The Dark Knight Rises" to conjure thoughts of Bain Capital, which was designed to undermine Mitt Romney's presidential bid.

This unearthed woodcut comic from the 1500s shows that it goes way deeper than that.

My Bad Summer of Eating Date with @Bing and @Klout

I took my husband out on a date today because I tried to take him on a date yesterday only to find the restaurant we wanted to go to didn't open at normal hours on Sunday, and now that my husband is working again, we can only do things on Sundays and Mondays because those are his days off.

I also took him out because I got a perk from Klout.com and Bing.com (because I am super popular), where I was given a wine set and a $10 Visa giftcard to celebrate their Summer of Eating promotion.
I even told our awesome waitron why we were there and she wrote down Klout.com in her order taking thingy, because she likes free things as much as everyone else likes free things, and as much as I like free things, which is an awesome reason to sign up for Klout.com-- because I have gotten quite a few great free things from them.

Only, when it came time to pay, I pulled out my super duper Visa giftcard, and IT DIDN'T FREAKING WORK.

It was like  one of those moments when you go on a date with some guy who picked you up on the internet and then after you have eaten delicious food that you THOUGHT he was gonna pay for, he is all, "Oh, sorry, I guess my card isn't working..." and you're all "FINE, the waitron has swiped your card three times and you need to know that I am SO NOT PUTTING OUT NOW, but fucking fuck, I'll pay for it. Asshole!"

That's how Klout/Bing made me feel.  They were the bad date that screws you over and makes you pay for the food they promised you, because THEY sure as hell aren't going to wash dishes to pay for this meal. Not that I would really expect them to, because websites and water don't really mix, but yeah, I was pretty damned disappointed.

That doesn't mean that I won't get free stuff from them again if its available, and that I didn't appreciate what they were TRYING to give me.  It was exciting to get such a cool perk.  And hey, I have this awesome wine set (though I don't drink wine, or anything I could use a wine set with). I'm sure I can find a use for it and as always, suggestions are welcome and illustrations are worth extra points.

It totally looks like a fancy murdering kit to me, but my parents bought me an Infamous Murderers book for Hanukkah when I was a teenager, so that probably explains that line of thought.


I just wish that after touting how awesome Klout and Bing were on twitter and in the restaurant, the friggen card worked so I didn't look like one of those girls...



And I think this kinda goes without saying, because of the content of this "review" but:

Influencer disclosure

I was given a free product or sample because I'm a Klout influencer. I was under no obligation to receive the sample or talk about this company. I get no additional benefits for talking about the product or company.

Life Lessons - Tire Balancing

There are many things I have learned in life, the hard way, and I thought I would use my stupid mistakes as examples to help all of you, in this new series I've aptly titled, Life Lessons.


This is the first in the series: Tire Balancing



I think that asking if you want a newly mounted tire "balanced" for an additional cost is some sort of mechanics' practical joke.

I learned this lesson in my early 20s while getting a new tire at a used tired place.

I was wrong. Even though I only had $50 to my name, I REALLY did want to spend that extra money, but I was working under the assumption that tires are actually round by nature.  They're not. I think they might be triangular, or hexagonal, but they sure as hell aren't naturally round, which I learned, as my car rocked and wobbled as I drove it away from the shop, fifteen dollars richer, but substantially less comfortable.
I'm surprised they weren't openly laughing at me when I came back a few days later to report there was something wrong with the tire they sold me.

Zed: Well, you said you didn't want it balanced!
Me: Right, because I didn't realize that "balancing" was a secret code word for AN ACTUAL WORKING TIRE!
And then I paid $15 to get my tire made in to a circle.

So here's your lesson:
You want your new tire balanced. It's worth the money. Only an asshole gives you the option to drive away on a triangular tire.

Stuffed