PAY ATTENTION TO ME!

There’s this weird thing that people do that baffles me. As an artist, it has happened to me but it clearly isn't just confined to art, but the puzzling phenomenon of people taking credit for things that they obviously didn't do.

That is not to say that I don’t get the general idea of lying to get attention...

But the chances of it backfiring and looking like a total jackhole when you are figured out totally skews the risk vs. reward ratio way too far into the TOO RISKY category for me and I think, most reasonable people. So much so that I have never actually considered such a ridiculous idea.

Part of the real confusion I experience with this is this "flying to close to the sun" urge that seems to come with the urge to lie about your achievements. Instead of lying in a small way that might give a small boost, it seems to be a huge ridiculous lie that is just so obvious it's kind of insulting. *cough Trump cough*

But there is another way.

For all the flack that millennials get, there’s this beautiful thing I have seen happening in the current generation that would totally satiate these low effort attention seekers without resulting in them needing to delete their Facebook account when their artist friends call out the fact that they have claimed to paint a picture that was painted by a really well-known artist…

It’s called… ASKING FOR COMPLIMENTS.

Honestly, it is the coolest thing about people now. When you’re having a bad day, if you’re friends with leftist millennials or similarly positive nice people, you can just ask for the attention you need and (if you don’t do this on a daily basis and you’re not a total asshole) they’ll totally say nice things about you to make you happy.

This also works with asking for a gif of kittens and pictures of hybrid corgi mixes, I've found. But seriously, have you looked up corgi mixes?



Anyway, if you find yourself in need of emotional support sometimes and claiming you painted the Mona Lisa starts looking tempting, I urge you to try asking for a compliment to get the ego boost you need. Just say, "Hey friends, I'm having a hard time. Could you say something nice about me to cheer me up?"


And there’s the added bonus of knowing who to unfriend if anyone tries to make you feel bad about having emotional needs that are met by receiving external validations sometimes, 'cause you deserve to be happy and feel loved and people who try to shit on that don't deserve corgis AT ALL.

Lessons Learned

I've learned a couple things in the past few days that I thought I should probably share with you all.

I've talked about the first one in the past, but apparently, it is still a lesson I need to learn as I lay here in buttloads of pain because my brain still hasn't learned the lesson that catching yourself when you're falling is often nearly as painful as just letting yourself fall.
This time, I was freezing so I very gracefully stepped out of my shower for a second to turn off the light which I forgot to turn off (see my last post), but the floor mat wasn't where it was supposed to be so I tried to scoot my foot over to it and pull it towards me so I didn't make as much of a puddly mess, but when I did that, I slid on the pool of water that was forming under my foot. I tried to catch myself with the towel bar, which wasn't happy with my antics and pulled completely off the wall.
At this point, I was doing a naked wet split, half in and half out of my bathtub, and I was falling forward with a pointy metal stick in my hand. Flailing, I tipped forward and was saved by a giant package of Costco toilet paper that was sitting underneath the towel rack, and I ended up planking on the toilet paper, to keep from breaking my leg on the edge of the bathtub. It was all pretty humiliating, and my husband slept through the entire ordeal, including me repairing the towel bar.
I keep having to remind myself when I am in awe of my pain levels that my shower acrobatics are entirely to blame.

I'm not gonna draw it. Feel free to submit your own artist's rendering.




And then I learned that sometimes, it's best to make a comment aloud into your empty house instead of commenting on the internet.
Usually, I keep my political commentary on my own Twitter page. I like to couple humor with fair points, but lately, I've been getting way too bold and when comments on safer accounts didn't blow up in my face, I branched out, and guys, I flew way too close to the sun.

I should have known better. It was a Bernie tweet. It's like MAGA jerkholes are just trolling his tweets all hours of the day and night waiting for some poor sap to comment so they can tell them that they're an asshole who needs to read a book and who has no idea of anything that has ever happened in the history of the world.  In fact, I'm kinda sure that that is exactly what they do.
When you see a comment section with absolutely NO comments that agree with the original post's point, THERE IS A REASON. Other people who agree already know this lesson, that's why they're not commenting. They know that these people will take any semi-valid point you make and purposefully misunderstand it so they can berate you because they need more love and understanding in their life and their moms should have hugged them more.

I just have to say, thank all the fluffy kittens in the world for Twitter's conversation mute option. There was just one guy trying to school me when I muted it, on the ridiculous notion that the current administration might consider cutting safety net provisions and that rich people might not want to just donate money to the government willy-nilly until some of those programs are enhanced. A masochistic curiosity brought me back to find that at least 15 people had joined in after I left to tell me that I was the stupidest person who ever existed and I should be ashamed to use words. I have no idea how many more people are going to join in, but it inspired me to take details about myself and my location off of the page, in case people decide to harass me for my humorously made point.
But lesson learned. Don't comment on Bernie Sander's twitter unless I have some sort of deep desire to be verbally abused.
I wish I had had something like that paper clip dude in Word that had stopped me in the first place.

I should have looked at kittens instead.

My Summer from Hell- Part Two: She's Going To Die

While I was waiting this summer to find out if I had cancer, the night after my cat got the cat equivalent of heat stroke, I got a call from my sister letting me know that she was in the ER with our mother who was about to be flown in a helicopter across Montana to a hospital in my city because she was having a cardiac event that was giving her trouble breathing. The next morning at 5:30 am, I got a call from the ICU doctor telling me to get my ass to the hospital to say goodbye because my mom was about to die.

Thankfully, the hospital is about 8 minutes from my house so I threw on clothes and booked it to the ICU where my mom was absolutely dying. Her lungs had filled with fluid and she was drowning, but she had refused intubation so they couldn't do much to help her.

I entered the room with a crowd of people around her, she was fighting them and was almost unrecognizable with a CPAP mask over her face, out of her mind from the lack of oxygen that was making its way into her blood.

They sort of pushed me forward and told me to talk to her. My mother and her mother didn't get along at all and it just so happened that it was my grandmother's yahrtzeit (that's Jewish for deathaversary, which I always thought was "yard side" as that's how it's pronounced). I grabbed my mom's hand and made her look at me, "It's 7-11, you're not allowed to die today! I'm sorry, but if you insist on dying, you're going to have to put it off so you don't share your death day with grandma."

And my mother is so spiteful that she immediately stopped dying. She did have to go have heart surgery immediately afterward to sustain the whole living deal, but as soon as I got there and reminded her to breathe and fight, she cleared her lungs and was able to be transported across Montana yet again to go to another hospital for her surgery.

It was that night when I got home from the hospital, that my computer died.

And then my husband's computer died, having just died and been replaced two months earlier.

And then I had a hysterectomy.

And then I had weird side effects from my hysterectomy like white-hot leg pain, and 96 hours of full body itching, and phantom uterine cramping that felt like it was tearing me in half.

And then my car died. Twice. (It was the alternator, and then the starter, in a week's time).

And then I found out my neutered cat was an attempted rapist when we let in a cute little neighborhood cat who'd been meowing at our door, then immediately put her out because my cat is horrible and gross, but then she stalked us for five whole nights, howling like she was using a bullhorn outside our windows which, of course, made Stevie howl inside at the top of his lungs for 5 whole nights.

And my state elected a reporter-slamming jerk.

And then I was diagnosed with a breast tumor which probably isn't cancer but might still be cancer.

And then my camera died.

And I was turned down for disability because I have a good attitude which, of course, precludes actually being sick.

And the jerks in our government spent the summer trying like hell to take away my health insurance, which would have meant that I wouldn't be able to be treated for all the Schrodinger cancer I had (or didn't have as the case may be), which I was constantly worried about, which of course made my illness all that much worse (and of course, they're still doing it).

So yeah, my summer had a lot of suckage that just kept on pooping down on me, like a way less appetizing fondue fountain at Golden Corral.

But now that I have a computer again, and  the use of a working camera and I feel slightly less like spending every waking moment binge-watching Netflix (almost done with all eight seasons of Dexter) and playing Candy Crush on my tablet to drown my woes, it is my plan to make up for lost time with content galore, which I hope you will come back for and share.

I also have an actual smartphone now (for the time being, seeing how things go for me) so I'm all over social media as "cheeseblarg" and I'm actually posting stuff, so go ahead and follow me!

So what days of the week are you most looking forward to something to laugh at? Let me know so I can get on setting some kind of schedule, please.

Safety Net, More Like Safety NOT.

I have been contacted by at least 4 of my 5 current medical providers in the past week chastising me for being an irresponsible jerk. The problem is, I am totally responsible and also, that kind of judgment is super bad for my health, guys, stop it.

As I've said before, I'm poor. Yes, we have the sweet sweet financial aid currently, that makes life so much more enjoyable, but since that is a gift from the government (that they expect to get back someday), and it only goes for basic living stuff, we still receive bare minimum safety net services, like Medicaid (Thanks, Obama), and when you have social services, there is a whole lot of hoop jumping that comes along with it.

And I'm not even complaining. I'm getting something incredibly valuable for free, basically. I mean, I paid into the system for a decade before coming to need these services, but I am almost entirely fine with having to fill out endless paperwork and report my every change to these agencies, because basically they are keeping me alive, and for that, I would do an assload of paperwork, man.

The problem is, I did my paperwork. A week after I moved. I went onto their website like their paperwork instructed me to, and I changed my Primary Care Provider, like they told me to, and I waited a month until my new coverage kicked in to make any doctor's appointments, like a super responsible girl, even though I desperately needed to see those doctors then, only to find out that the website we were all told to use, doesn't seem to be attached to anything!

Even worse, after getting the situation squared away by calling their hotline, I asked to make a complaint about the website not working and here's what I was told:

We know that there's a problem. We are working diligently to fix the issue that is making it so that the website collects data, tells you it registered you, but then spits the information out into the ether. It's a particular problem with the medical center that serves your area. Unfortunately, we can't tell those providers that this is an issue we're having so they stop chastising you because we have no way of knowing that you actually tried to sign up, you could be making it up and this whole problem could just be that you people are liars. This problem... that we've been trying to deal with for at least 3 months now... that countless people have complained about. Have you tried not being poor?

I might be paraphrasing slightly. Anyway, it's frustrating enough that I've written this novella about it. There's the whole myth of the Welfare Queen living high on benefits from the government, but being humiliated on a regular basis because technology is hard for the government doesn't feel very royal to me. All I'd really like is for Montana Medicaid's IT department to contact my providers and tell them there's an issue with the website and that their clients aren't just sitting around eating bonbons and laughing in the face of responsibility. Okay, maybe I would like some bonbons too, but I would really like them to take responsibility for their errors, instead of putting it all on the poor people who are trying to do the right thing on a broken system.

buy me bonbons!

Cheeseblarg does Makeup - Episode One

Despite being a lizard girl, I decided to see if I could actually produce a video of me putting on makeup that was entertaining enough to watch so that I can progress towards my goal of fancy makeup companies sending me free samples. According to my husband, it helps to actually care about putting on makeup when you watch it, which he really doesn't, but I did get a few laughs out of him when I held him down and forced him to preview it before I put my dry crackly face on the internet where hopefully I won't attract hoards of trolls who will mock me and make me cry for the rest of my life. Sorry, I digress. His final assessment was that it is worth watching and that I'm cute, and I like that sort of feedback, so here it is.

It IS somewhat long. I will learn in the future that blending times are times for quietness so I can fast forward through them without sounding like a chipmunk, but if you like makeup, or me, or just want to pretend that we hang out when I'm putting on makeup, maybe you could watch? And subscribe? And encourage me to make more and better videos of all sorts* where you get to see me doing things and talking? And even share it? Maybe?

*Like drawing... I have the technology to show myself drawing comics for the blarg while possibly speaking about what I'm doing.

for early access to videos and outtakes

How Do You Spoon?

As the person who, for the last 20+ years has been in charge of my mother's computer fixing/helping/education, I take issue with this image that I'm sure we've all come across on Facebook:

It seems to make a good point, but  I taught my mom to copy and paste for the first time in about 1995. She's still not sure about it when she has to go from one document to another to paste. She freaks out when she has to attach a file or download a file. I guarantee you, if after 20 years, I still wasn't sure on the use of a spoon and I called her from college yelling at her that she broke my spoon when I was the one who just wasn't good with a spoon, she would yell at me just as much as I yell at her when I ask her for the 600th time, "WHERE DID YOU SAVE THE FILE!? NO! IN NOTEPAD ISN'T AN ANSWER! YOU CAN'T SAVE FILES IN A PROGRAM! THEY GO IN A FOLDER! WHERE IS THE FILE!!!!???"

For bonus content!

Twentyish by Fortyish

 I add "ish" to my bucket lists. Like 4 before 40-ish, give or take a few years.

— Jennifer 

Tomorrow I will be 39 and a ½ so following the tradition of age-related goal setting, with the all too poignant reminders I’ve had lately that life is far too short, I am coming up with a list of things I would like to do before 40, but as my twitter friend suggested, I’ll make it by 40ish, because I am chronically ill and I’m not willing to beat myself up for not reaching goals that are arbitrary to begin with. So these are things that I would like to do in my life and soon, that I am willing to put some effort towards. Also, I do stuff I want to all the time, so I’m pretty sure I’m not going to come up with 40 things I really want to do that I haven’t done before (or in a really long time), so, here’s 20ish by 40ish:

1. Go to the Grand Canyon
2. Pick my nose at the Grand Canyon

I could make them really easy related things like "Go to Grand Canyon" "Pick nose at Grand Canyon" #40by40ish

— J Rose

3. Get a book published by an actual publisher (and not just self-publishing- clearly this requires cooperation by entities other than myself which makes it so much harder)
4. Gamble in Las Vegas
5. Pick my nose while gambling in Las Vegas (also counts if it is just done in a casino)
6. Pet a llama
7. Snuggle goats (I would say pet a goat, but most of my childhood was spent petting goats apparently)

 

8. Meet internet friends in person
9. Read a new Stephen King book
10. Collect all the cats in Atsume Neko

My goodies bring all the kitties to the yard. #nekoatsume #newbie

A photo posted by JRose (@cheeseblarg) on Mar 30, 2016 at 10:24pm PDT

11. Go to a dentist despite being a complete dental phobe (extra points for not having overwhelming anxiety whilst doing so)
12. Try bone marrow
13. Vote for Bernie Sanders
14. See the new Ghostbusters movie in the theater
15. Pick my nose while watching the new Ghostbusters movie
16. Plan a surprise party for my cat

17. Write a short story
18. Purge a bunch of my belongings that I don’t need or ever think about
19. Make pasta from scratch
20. Have funny colored hair (again, my college career was a time of rainbow hair)
21. Eat an entire village
22. Eat a fruit I've never had before, for dessert, after eating an entire village

And with that said, stay tuned for this exciting project!

Coming to da blarg (with extra content at Patreon for supporters) at the end of April!

Terrible Product Ideas - New Soda Flavor

When I come home from grocery shopping, I tell my husband all of the new and wonderful products I've found/bought during that day's shopping trip. I was having a brain fog day where words are hard to find, so I paused in the middle of describing a new treat, looking for the word I wanted and this was my husband's guess given the first word I had said. It spawned the idea for this comic/new terrible product.

with plans for extra exclusive content!

The Real Reason Cats Knock Cups Over

I am sure you have all seen the hilarious sign that reads: "Please don't leave drinks unattended [the cat's an asshole]!"

What if cats aren't the assholes?

Don't Be That Atheist.

Do you have that one friend? The one who, no matter what you say, absolutely has to correct you based on his or her belief? I think you know the type. The BAD ATHEIST?

Although I count as an atheistic Jew myself, I regularly make reference to God. Whether it is repeated OMG! OMG! OMG! (like when Conan O'Brien said my name), or comically shaking my fists at the sky in frustration, though I choose not to worship any god that may or may not exist, I am fine with colloquial references, because, Jesus Christ, I live in America and God is all up in this bitch.

I do not count as the Bad Atheist, though, because while I may be thinking, "Yeah, Jesus is totally not going to make you pass your physics tests that you prayed about instead of studying for," I am not going to say it out loud to you because, I don't give a shit what other people believe as long as they aren't jerks. I also don't really care if you pass that test... especially if you didn't bother to study.

To me, mentioning God is akin to talking about how awesome unicorns are, and drawing everything as zombies. Yes, I friggen know they are most likely just a figment of our imaginations, but tons of people dig them, so their existence in reality is not an issue to me.

The Bad Atheist, however, is that jerk who compulsively has to pipe in:

Clown Fish Sandwich

Is there any kind of Tuna that is not a fish that is getting confused with Tuna fish out there?

Google Image Upgrade: Medical SafeSearch

I recently went to the doctor because I had to go off of my medications that quiet all of my crazy autoimmune diseases and I acquired a weird sore on my thumb that caused a volcano like hole that was fairly concerning to me.

He told me that if it got worse, I was to come back immediately, so of course, I went home and google imaged my diagnosis to see what "worse" would look like and then I immediately wanted to stab my eyes out with forks.

I appreciate that Google image has been proactive in filtering sexual content with their SafeSearch, which blocks out hardcore images (not that I ever use it, VIVA LA BOOBIES!), but what we really need is a search filter for medical images.

Without fail, every time you do a Google Image Search on a medical issue, there is one mild image showing what a normal case of the disease looks like, and EVERY OTHER IMAGE is like a 20 inch hole with gore and carnage exploding out of it.

Serious, no matter what it is. Hangnail? Stubbed Toe? Splinter? OMG!!! How the hell did someone get a log sized splinter in their eye!?

I'm not arguing that these images shouldn't be available, but dear lord, we need to be able to choose from mild, moderate and horrendous images when we're searching for actual medical images.

Someone ought to make a petition!

(^I did, that's a link to it right there^)

Señor Butter Butt

If Stevie had his way, he would eat margarine for every meal. He seems to have no shame about it. I tweeted this the other night:

as I was turned to the computer, making fun of him online, this happened:

My husband just stood there and watched the cat happily licking the margarine off the piece of matzo I had gone into the kitchen to get (which prompted his meowing in the first place). Somehow he thought I had allowed this because I guess he thinks I am totally okay with disgusting cat mouth on my food.

This is not the first incident with the margarine. My mom left the end of a stick on the counter in the kitchen. I found it the next morning with suspicious tongue prints on it. He seriously won't eat anything else left out . My husband sat some chicken wings on a tray on the bed the other evening, walked away... cat totally ignored them. But he left an eaten ear of corn (that had margarine on it) and the cat was carrying it through the house, happy as could be.

Seriously, if he ever figures out how to open the refrigerator, I can totally see this happening:

Hooked on Straws

We've found that my cat's favorite toy in the entire world is a regular plastic drinking straw. On the bright side, his toys are REALLY cheap, or free, basically, if I bring extras home when I go out for fast food. He'll even fetch them if they're thrown for him, and will come back and drop them at your feet to throw again... after mauling your hand a little.

There are only two negatives... my house is full of chewed on straws. I tuck into bed at night and find them buried in my sheets. And then, there's this:

edited to add: