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.

Lizard Girl- Beauty Vlogger

So I have been wanting to create some videos of me putting on makeup in fancy ways, but I have Behcet's Syndrome (BS for short) and BS* is fucking up my face.

No matter what product I use, my face is dry and scaly. From basically forehead to jawline, I look like I'm molting. I've tried using moisturizers but they all just irritate my skin further, so I get blisters on my face in addition to scales. And yes, I've tried sensitive skin moisturizer and natural remedies with no man-made chemicals; it's all a no go. Sometimes, even water is too much for it.

When I brought up the idea of makeup tutorials, my skin was clear and soft for the first time in... well, most of my adult life, thanks to the wonders of chemotherapy**. But for some reason now, on the same dosage, my skin wants to pretend it's an alligator, so until I can adjust my dosage to the point that it works, I can either hold off on making videos, or I can embrace a new identity:

*quite the apropos abbreviation
** Chemotherapy is an accepted treatment for BS, which helps my body to stop attacking its own vascular system. I'm not just taking dangerous medicine to have nice skin, though it is a plus... when it actually works.

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!

No Snuggles for You!

Stevie WILL NOT cuddle with me like a snuggly kitty... unless I have been asleep for several hours. Then he wants to lay up against my face/chest and nuzzle, but just until I wake up completely and think, "Aw, he's snuggling," then he gets up and leaves.

So, in short, I think my cat might be a snuggling version of a necrophiliac.

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^)

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.

To My Doctor...

So... okay, my colonoscopy was awful, and it was an anomaly*, I know, because I have a super liver (still) that filters medications out of my body at high speeds, so uh, I may have traumatized some people.

They also might not have taken me completely seriously when I told them that I ALWAYS wake up during the procedure. So, I woke up during the procedure...

And I feel it necessary, now, to make this card for my doctor because I am going to have to continue to see him, and I am fairly embarrassed that in my semi-unconscious state I couldn't stop myself my screaming like a crazed weasel and crying hysterically, like someone had just been cutting chunks out of my intestines while filling them full of air.

All I really know about my doctor is that he REALLY likes working out. And he seems not to be a serial killer, so I can safely assume that he likes kittens and rainbows and unicorns and mini Godzilla.

So, yeah. Sorry 'bout that.



*Please don't let this scare you off from getting life-saving diagnostic tests. Most people don't have this problem, and a few minutes of screaming while they run off to get you more meds is worth making sure your guts are okay, believe me. This is my fifth and it won't be my last, no matter how many times it traumatizes me.

Sponsor my Pooping!

I have a colonoscopy scheduled for next Thursday. My doctor keeps on harping at me, "blah blah, have a colonoscopy, colon cancer risk, blah blah blah." And I have no problem with HAVING a colonoscopy; they put you to sleep for it and give you drugs that make you mostly forget the procedure (though I have a knack of waking up during it each time until they realize I am awake and pump more drugs into me)... the problem is the prep.  If they could somehow give me amnesia through the whole prep leading up to the procedure, I would have those things any damned time they asked me to.

If you are not familiar with colonoscopies, after they install an IV drip to flood you with drugs of joy, a doctor takes a flexible tube with a camera type device on it and sticks it up your poop chute, looking for any signs of scarring, or cancer, or bleeding, or polyps, or wormholes that make you poop out of your own mouth. But to do that, they have to remove all the everything that usually hangs out in one's intestines so they can get a clear view of the intestine walls, and to do THAT, they make you drink a bunch of gnarly tasting junk that turns your butt into Old Faithful.. for 20 hours.

During my last colonoscopy, 4 years ago, they apparently replaced the regular nursing staff with some Medieval Inquisitionist who clearly thought I was harboring some serious secrets, because she was more than happy to torture me by refusing to let me get up to go to the bathroom. "Just go on the table." I don't WANT to go on the table!! They break prisoners by making them violate potty training! JUST LET ME GO! But nope, she apparently wanted to scar me for life, which she has done, which is part of why, though I am supposed to have a colonoscopy every year, I have avoided doing so.

When I took my mom in for a colonoscopy last year and they told her to just let them know when she needed to go again so they could help her up, I yelped out "WHAT THE HELL!?" and told my tale of Nurse Torment.  "Here?!" the nurse asked incredulously. "That is NOT our policy! I don't know why that happened to you." Uh, because I have to write a blarg somehow and if things were always boring and sane around me, I'd have to ACTUALLY be entertaining, instead of just telling what happens to me or laying in fetal position rocking back and forth.

But as usual, there is more to it than just doing the prep and having this test done. The prep meds cost about 4 times my budget for buying things in a week. The colonoscopy, itself, is totally covered by the hospital now, but the Old Faithful intestinal cleanser, nope... they won't pay for it, so I have to find a way to make it so.

I have toyed with the idea of having sponsored pooping. For a minimum of ten dollars, I could announce on Twitter and/or Facebook

with the inclusion of a link and logo or quick drawing from me. For more than 10 dollars, they could actually make up their own tagline, instead of leaving it to me.  Then I would send the sponsors a card and an I HELP FIGHT COLON CANCER sticker with a brown ribbon, of course*, to thank them for their support, or something along those lines. There is 20 hours of prep, but I wouldn't need that many sponsors to cover the cost, and any extra could go to buy me a solid lunch after the procedure. Genius, no?

I also thought we could have a betting pool to guess how many polyps I have this time.


Regardless, I shall be live tweeting my colonoscopy prep on the 28th of March. It should be a rocking good time. And I promise not to post any pictures of toilets or things that have come out of my butt. I might describe some of it though... but with a sense of humor, always a sense of humor.


*no, really, that is the ribbon color for colon cancer, because someone has quite a sense of humor, and laughter is still the best medicine.

An Apology 'Neath the Green Bay Tree

A letter to my nephew in the future:

Dear Booger,

I just want to tell you that I love you before I begin explaining.

I am writing this because some day, I am sure you will see the movie Gummo, and when you are done watching that movie, I'm fairly certain that you are going to hook your brain into the computer and google "WTF IS WRONG WITH MY AUNT!?"

And the answer is, "I don't really know. I guess I wasn't thinking about the fact that you would see that movie some day and it had the potential to implode your childhood."  Which probably won't help in your need for therapy, but it is my honest answer.

See, there IS something wrong with your uncle, as he really likes the movie Gummo and played it often before you were born. I tried to avoid watching it and would leave the room or retreat to the computer when he turned it on, but it starts with THAT DAMNED SONG, and that damned song is an awesome song... and somehow, when I first held you shortly after you were born, I thought, "I love my little rooster and my rooster loves me!" and so I sang it to you, and it became our song, and it wasn't until I heard you singing under your breath the other day, "Cock a doodle do, doodle doo, doodle doo," that I thought, 'OH CRAP, SOME DAY HE'S GONNA WATCH THAT FREAKING MOVIE! I AM THE WORST AUNT EVER!'

So, I am sorry. I could lie and say I didn't get the song I have sung to you all your life from a really upsetting awful movie, but clearly that is not true. I just thought it was better than Old McDonald and it has yodeling. Yodeling is good. Gummo, not so much, unless you are into that sort of HORRIFIC disturbing thing (which you are allowed to be if you are... I still love your uncle, you'll notice).

All my love,
Your Aunt J

The song in question. Research the movie on your own if you've been lucky enough not to see it. =P

JUDGING!

JRose took the advice of her readers and took a muscle relaxer, which is why she has only been awake for three hours today.  As a result, she has nothing to write about and her neck/shoulder still hurt but she had a dream that a cop named Ron Rodney pulled her over for going 75 in a 77 mph zone, after she got in a shouting argument with a woman working at a Hungry Howie's Pizzas and Subs shop for being less than nice while giving her mom a pizza.

She thinks it might be the muscle relaxer that is also making her talk about herself in third person.

Don't do drugs. At least muscle relaxers. They make you not want to draw, and taxidermed horned creatures will judge you.

THEY'RE JUDGING YOU!

JUDGING!

That word has now lost all meaning.

Judge.

Why you should leave aversion therapy to the professionals.

I hate black pepper. You know, the seasoning, that everyone in the world uses, that makes people sneeze? Yes. I hate it. And I hate it, I realized a few years ago, because I was conditioned, as a child, to hate it.

Here is a pro-tip for you: If you decide that it is a good idea to do DIY aversion therapy on your grandchild to get her to stop sucking her thumb by mixing something bad tasting into nail polish that is placed on her thumbnail, don't use a common spice that will be in her food for the rest of her life. Unless you want to be a dick, in which case, go for it.

When Cars Attack

There are some things in life that you are supposed to be able to navigate easily as an adult, and dealing with a minor traffic accident apparently is one of those things.  Not having been in any traffic collisions, until Friday, I realize I have been woefully unprepared for what the quack you are supposed to do when someone backs into your car while you are happily coming about in a parking lot.


How it should happen:

How it apparently really happens when you have no clue what is supposed to happen:

Change is hard.

I don't buy into the whole, "If it's free, you can't complain" dogma.  My lungs are free, came with the package, but I am totally complaining, as loudly as I possibly can, if they stop working in a useful and helpful way. Something being free doesn't and shouldn't preclude it from receiving feedback, as far as I am concerned.

I do, however, think that making the best of everything is the easiest policy, for one's own sanity, and I rarely join in the "OMG! MAKE IT GO BACK!" crowd. I would rather just make fun of the situation and get on with it... so I have annotated my personal Facebook page below to give everyone a positive spin on all the changes that have happened to the Facebook Layout.

While it seems horrifically changed, it really isn't.  

• There is the addition of the "Awesome Stalk-O-Matic ™" scrolling bar on the right - which is perfect for people who like to obsessively keep up with their favorite people and see EVERY SINGLE INTERACTION THEY HAVE... which is right up my alley.  

          These can likely be cut down by altering your subscriptions to people you don't give a damn about.

• Then there is the "Ninja Algorithm Cool Stuff ™" that is marked by little blue triangles which seems to have no rhyme or reason, but a game can be made of trying to figure out the pattern.

• And all the other stuff that you saw before the change lives underneath the new stuff. Mostly. Except possibly your own posts. Unless you are popular. 

Urine big trouble, bladder!

I was planning on writing something so entertaining today that people would have DIED laughing, but I'm hella tired and I went to the doctor today and peed on my own hand, so the death by laughter will have to wait.

Here are the events leading up to my awesome day:

And... I'll find out in two days what the hell my jerk pee maker's problem is. In the meantime, thank goodness for AZO and cranberry juice.

Don't Get Attached.

This morning, I tried to convince my mom to stop using crapo.com for her email service after talking her through the set up for a gmail account.  She pays 10 dollars a year for crapo-mail and has been using it since 1997.   It won't attach more than one item at a time. It sends forwards as attachments.  It takes up to two hours to send emails to my hotmail account at peak hours. It is, in fact, a piece of crap, especially for a paid service. She thinks it is fine.

I think that there is a fundamental difference in the way my generation uses computers compared to that of my mother's generation.   When I use a computer, having had access to them the majority of my life, I want the process to be completely efficient. I want to avoid erroneous clicking and mouse movements and downloading anything, ever. If I am forwarded something, the last thing I want to do is download a file to my computer that I have to open with another program to read a joke about a cheeky octogenarian ordering milk for a bath.  We don't even have milkmen anymore! And who the hell sells unpasteurized milk!?

My mom, on the other hand, is used to reading mail the conventional (read:old fashioned) way.  She expects to open an envelope, unfold a letter, and flip through the 6 different attached Sunday Funnies clipped from the newspaper, so she has no qualms about having to click 4 different things to get a stupid joke forward to open.  If she could do eBay via postcard, she would.  She won't, however, click links that I send her in emails.  Somehow she has learned that downloading things on her computer is fine, but links are super dangerous, especially those sent by your computer savvy daughter. Or maybe it is because crapo-mail doesn't generate clickable links in their incoming emails and she doesn't know how to copy and paste them...

OMFGNOTBBQ!

I came to a terrible realization today.

Hanging out at my friend's house, we keep lamenting that the neighbors are ALWAYS barbecuing and it smells so delicious. We've even joked about showing up at their door with a plate for dinner. Then, this morning I walked out in the backyard and saw this over the fence:

I'm so sorry, Mr. Fluffypants. I'm so sorry.

How I learned to attend classes in college.

When I was in college, I was not famous for making it to classes. Especially not classes that were at 8am.  I learned, eventually, not to schedule my classes before noon.. fine, before 3pm... but I had an unfortunate semester where I had scheduled a Non-Western Art History class at 8am and my teacher was boring, and a jerk, and  I was suffering from allergy-induced panic attacks.  It turns out that they were a reaction to a medicine I took every night at 10 pm, though no one realized it was an "allergy" until well after I had failed a bunch of classes. And since I would take the pill at 10 pm, it would kick off a panic attack a few hours later once it got nice and cozy in my blood stream, so I would have a full blown panic attack at 2 am where I would call my sister, crying hysterically, like the one time I called telling her I thought I might actually be dead.

 "Well, how are you calling me if you're dead?" 

       "I don't know how it works! I'm freaking out, I think it is logical that I might be dead!"

 "You're not dead... go take your meds."

But the meds they prescribed at the college health clinic were Xanax (which only made the attacks worse) and Ambien (which knocked me out, hard), so the one time I recall making it to class, I was pretty much a drooling zombie, which ties back into the whole "already dead" thing ( but I assure you I am not a zombie now, so I may have been wrong on that count- although, if I were that would be pretty cool. Imagine that! You would be reading a blarg written by a zombie right now, a very articulate and funny zombie. You'd totally let me eat your brains if that was the case, right?!).

None of this is the point of what I am writing, though.  The point is, I missed A LOT of that Non-Western History class, and that kinda sucked, because it was required for me to graduate. In actuality, I only remember going to class a total of about 6 times. One of those times was for the final.

Now, I had taken A LOT of art history up until then, having gone to art schools for the preceding 6 years, so I thought that MAYBE I could wing it and get enough right to get a C- in the class so I wouldn't have to take it again, but then, I got the final in front of me, and I looked up at the slides that Professor Jerkhole was showing, and while they were certainly beautiful works of art, I didn't know a damned thing about them.  Well no, I recognized the works by Hokusai, who did those beautiful Japanese iconic prints of Tsunami waves in front of Mt. Fuji.

 And I recognized another Japanese wash painting by Ekaku of the Bodhidharma who had cut off his eyelids to meditate without falling asleep,

and the Terracotta soldiers of the Qin Dynasty (the ones that are featured in the latest Mummy movie).

But otherwise it was a bunch of pretty vases and raku cups and if you don't know anything about art history, none of this means anything to you, I know.  And it didn't mean much to me since I needed to know the artist, the title, the date, the historical period, and the materials of each piece of art.

And then this image came up:

And I looked down at the question on the test that went with the slide and the question read, I shit you not:

And I thought, "Well, shit, I imagine I would know that if I had ever gone to class... um... Buddha?" which was not the right answer.  I was wrong on about 85% of the questions, in fact... and I failed the class and had to take it again at which point I managed to actually go to class and pass.

But even taking the class over, I never found out who made that damned bowl.


UPDATED: 12/13/12 1:52 am- I FOUND THE BOWL! OMG! This is it. It was made by Ogata Kenzan, and his brother was the painter Ogata Korin! I cannot tell you how absolutely exciting finding this was! I found it at the following link FINALLY by searching "famous Japanese pottery." The internet is a wonderful place!
http://mcgyakimono.blogspot.com/2010/10/ogata-kenzan.html

Missing!

I've lost my sense of taste.  I noticed yesterday morning that "the best strawberry preserves in the world" that I had on my leftover matzo tasted, well, fairly crappy.  All day, everything tasted blah and it was making me pretty grumpy.  And then, I realized, while it is barely there, I seem to have lost my ability to taste sweet.  And now it is branching out to more flavors... I think umami might be going too.

I suppose it is also possible that it is not lost, but was actually stolen... though I have no idea what someone would want with my sense of taste, unless they lost THEIR sense of taste and were looking to replace it, knowing what good taste I have.

(On a serious note, for those who worry- I am fairly certain it is either a side effect of one of my medicines, or a new migraine symptom... if it continues, I shall talk to my doctor, scout's honor. I hope it passes quickly though, I have lots of Easter candy to consume and I would like to taste it.)

Bring out your dead!

I tried to fix my camera and ended up killing it.
I am usually good at everything and can fix anything given basic instructions, but, I might as well have had hammers for hands when attempting this repair.

I have a newfound respect for camera repair people because, while I did manage to avoid breaking down into to tears while trying, for 30 minutes, to get the 3rd of 5 orange cables back into its tiny silver toothed home after possibly successfully replacing the LCD screen (that I broke by dropping it), I did not avoid yelling "GET IN YOUR HOME!!!!!!!!!!!! AUGH!!!" or wishing everything and everyone dead in exchange for it JUST GETTING IN THERE, about the time when the black bar that snuggly holds the evil orange cable in place snapped off in my hand (or well, at the end of my finger because it was not even as wide as my finger and about the width of three hairs- and it was the biggest of the 5) and then snapped in half after that, as I delicately tried to put in back in to the almost microscopic hole it popped out of on my 40th attempt to get the damned cable back in.

So my adorable pink camera who served me well for almost 5 years is caput.  My friend was kind enough to procure me a new one so I could continue the photographic work I was doing with the now-dead one (see my cooking site), but I would like to be able to pay him back for it, so if anyone needs some llamas drawn for them (and is willing to exchange monetary credits for said drawing), let me know.


AND, a challenge.  Peep horror movie scenes… see Cheeseblarg’s Facebook Page for details!

Movie-Induced Narcolepsy

I suffer from a terrible affliction. I've found no medical evidence of it, but I have coined it "Movie-Induced Narcolepsy."  This is a condition in which watching movies in the comfort of my own home (or that of close friends) puts me, almost immediately, to sleep. It has never happened in a movie theater, not around strangers, only when relaxing and watching a private showing of a feature-length film, no matter the time of day.

There are many theories floating around as to why this happens, however I think it boils down to this:  I usually use subtitles, because I have another medically invalid condition called "What the hell did he say?" which occurs when any background noise is of a similar volume level to that of the dialog, wherein I am able to hear what is said but my brain refuses to interpret it (and I fully expect medical people who read this to now tell me that I have terminal ear cancer or a nerve deafness brought on by something that is equally terminal).

This triggers yet another issue, known as "Reading makes me tired," wherein reading... makes me tired. Yes, I know, I clearly am going to die.  But as a result of my afflictions, it took me a day and a half to finish watching Indian Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark last summer because I fell asleep every 25 minutes, and I really wanted to watch it, because all I could remember of it from when I was four years old, was being in the theater with my sister and having her cover my eyes towards the end so my face wouldn't melt on the advice of our cousin who had already seen it, but had somehow managed to escape face melting, to tell her that shielding was necessary. And of course, the part with the ball was mildly familiar from the spoof of it in UHF...

This post is not meant to poke fun at or belittle actual sufferers of Narcolepsy (or ear cancer, or terminal nerve deafness). Seriously. Don't yell at me.