11 out of 22 aka The Second Grand Canyon Incident

I got 11 of my 22 things done before I turned 40 (exactly a month ago as of writing this). I'm calling that a success, though I am still working on most of the rest. I've decided that goats and llamas don't need the stress of me hugging them, but if I come across one in nature and it's down to snuggle, I'll oblige. Others are being delayed as changes come into my life and 'cause I am perpetually broke and can't afford fanciful things, even if they are on a list of things I want to do. And I'm still afraid of dentists.

THINGS I DID

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

In April, we (being my husband, my mother, and I) took a road trip o'er this way too damned big country to FINALLY go see the Grand Canyon, with a detour through Las Vegas. I'm still not terribly thrilled to be in a car almost 7 months later. 

In true Cheeseblarg fashion, "The Experiment" was in full swing and my mother, who is physically incapable of throwing up, contracted The Worst Stomach Flu Ever Known To Man™ and spent two days pooping her way through Utah and Nevada. I, of course, waited to get this flu from hell until we got to Arizona, at which point I became the sickest and saddest fountain of puke and poop, ever.

We had planned to be in town for two days because I was set to complete task 8, "Meet an internet friend in person" but work stuff made it so she couldn't make the drive from New Mexico, and I literally felt like I was dying. I knew I'd be back the next day, so my first moments of seeing the Grand Canyon were staggering out of our car, which was parked right along the edge of the canyon on a cold windy day and thinking, "Great, it's a huge fucking hole, can we go home now?"

Then I sat in the car and cried while my mom expressed 40 years worth of displeasure with me and my husband enjoyed exploring with his family who had driven up to meet us there. It was just as The Experiment would have had it.

The next day, I was dying just a little bit less and it was at least 42% more enjoyable. I still wanted to go home, but I did have the energy that day to pick my nose.

I had that flu for 5 days. Apparently, me and the Grand Canyon were just really not meant to be.

3. Gamble in Las Vegas
4. Pick my nose while gambling in Las Vegas

Before I became deathly ill, I actually had a really great time in Las Vegas. I managed to win 5 dollars on a cheeseburger themed slot machine, and then I lost 20ish dollars in quarters the rest of the time there. And I picked my nose.

I also ate a lot at the Bacchanal Buffet at Caeser's Palace, which you could see from our hotel room. We also had a bitchin' view of the Bellagio's fountains from our room so I could watch the fancy water show without having to be around humans I didn't know.

 I chose the Bacchanal Buffet, in part, because research told me it had the best desserts of all the buffets in Las Vegas. If I had had more money at my disposal, I would have wanted to do my own research, but I did make sure to get one of every dessert I could eat (keeping my allergies in mind) and tried all of them*. The best was actually a Thai rice pudding with a delicate coffee perfume that I still pine for.

(Starting at the top and going clockwise-ish) Fudge, cherry clafouti, chocolate lava
cake, lemon tart, red velvet brownie, toffee chocolate mousse pop, pecan pie.

(starting at the top going clockwise) Thai rice pudding, guava strawberry sorbet, 
tropical pineapple compote, flan, coconut tapioca pudding, creme brulee, 
oreo dome cake

*My mom and I shared them, 'cause even though most of them were small, I totally can't eat 14 desserts all by myself  (especially after eating Lobster Benedict) and I am too Jewish to waste so much food, just taking a bite of each.

5. Read a new Stephen King book

Finishing out the Bill Hodges trilogy, I actually got this book in the mail from an otherwise anonymous woman named Becky, because it was a book I requested from The Bloggess's booksgiving, earlier this year. I look forward to more mystery/crime type novels from Stephen King. 

6. Collect all the cats in Neko Atsume 

I managed this one on my actual birthday. I've been trying all this time but all the fancy cats decided to visit me to wish me a happy birthday. I'm certain of it.

7. Vote for Bernie Sanders

While I didn't get to vote for him for President (because I'm not throwing away my shot vote), I totally did my primary duty. I wanted to take a picture to share, but I found out it was illegal in my state, so here is an artist's rendering:

8. See the new Ghostbusters movie in the theater
9. Pick my nose while watching the new Ghostbusters movie

I did, see this post: I Ain't Afraid of no Reboots!

10. Write a short story

If you didn't see it, you haven't been paying attention: The Melancholy Princess

11. Eat a fruit I've never had before

I started with Dragon Fruit and the image below is a summary of my feelings on this incredibly cool looking fruit.

For the most part, I'm pretty sure I've tasted all the best fruits (though I am holding out hope for mangosteen, which is incredibly hard to come by when you live in rural Montana). Moreover, there's a reason Dragon Fruit isn't as popular as apples and I don't think it's because it's tropical (see: Pineapples. Don't grow everywhere, still super popular because they are amazingly delicious.). I'm, of course, still open to new fruits. I had some awesome cotton candy grapes (that I had to peel to eat without a reaction), and the lychee was tasty but a little perfumey, but I'm totally giving up on Dragon Fruit. I just can't be down with a fruit that tastes like peppery water to me because pepper and I are not friends.

For extra content at just 1 dollar a post.

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.

Pee Post

This pee post is nothing like the pudding post. For the record.

I want to know and understand the mechanism that makes me nearly pee on the bathroom floor every time I turn on the shower.  Theories are that it is operant conditioning, like Pavlov's dogs, but I have to wonder if it is the same mechanism that makes me dream of bathrooms to discourage me wetting the bed.
Am I the only one that has this? I have polled my friends in the past and it seems that  for the most part, men don't dream of bathrooms though some women do, I guess because guys have a built-in physical pee deterrent (morning wood, I mean... that is its purpose, no?).

But if you have no idea what I am talking about, here is a repeating feature of my dreams, nightly:

Crazy things happen.
Find a unicorn crafted from green banana peels.*
Kill a zombie cat who is actually one of my friends.*
Oh wait, I have to pee.
Hrm, is there a bathroom anywhere?
Oh, look, here is one, and then my brain presents me with a way to relieve myself, but there is always a hitch...

(click to biggify)

And so every night, I am treated to a new and novel variation (or four) of "trick bathrooms" to wake me up to go pee.


*I would like to reveal that these are both actual dreams that I had this week.

A.A.A.D.D.

Dearest parents (especially mother), you should either not read this or, if you insist upon doing so, you should take a lot of illicit date rape sorts of drugs before reading this so you don't recall it and never discuss it with me. Let's go with never reading it, okay? Awesome. 


I'm not kidding either. 
Okay, on to the post ...


I was just reminded, when the boy I had a crush on in middle school added me on Facebook, that I was a fucking psycho when I was a teenager.  I think I owe pretty much everyone with a penis (who was not an immediate member of my family) that I knew from the ages of 11- 19 a major apology.  See, when I say "the" boy I had a crush on, I mean ONE of the 7 billion boys I had a crush on, but  definitely the one I spent the most time terrorizing, from my recollection. No, wait, the one I spent the most time terrorizing in eighth grade, and also part of 7th. I terrorized the hell out of a bunch of guys. I had a problem... we shall refer to it as attention and affection deficit disorder (AAADD).
I was  really bad, as a teenager, at ascertaining when someone was attracted to me. That is, people for the most part, weren't attracted to me, but if they were willing to make eye contact with me, or respond to me when I spoke and I found them even the remotest bit attractive, I was pretty sure they were in love with me. Or maybe it was that I was pretty sure I was in love with them, and any modicum of attention convinced me that the feeling was mutual or could, through repeated pestering and writing of REALLY bad poetry, be cultivated.

If you could imagine Chris Farley.. hell, you don't have to imagine. Here is a clip.

Yes, that was me, only quite a bit cuter. But the thing is, there was no chance of me having any sort of normal relationship with anyone at that time because responding to me was enough to set me off in a pattern of psychotic smothering attention. If I could just get my foot in the proverbial door, they were sure to adore the ever loving shit out of me... but the reality of it was, they were more than likely terrified of me, because my attention was fairly terrifying. And that was when I wasn't thinking of anything more than just holding hands and pop kisses.  I was probably about 42 times more terrifying when I was trying to seduce every male who interacted with me, not excluding my 9th grade Math substitute, some weird French guy who owned a leather furniture design company who may have been in his late 40s, my best friend, who was a male (the poor guy), C.B. Barnes, and our 25 year old neighbor.

Of course, people who WERE actually attracted to me, I was oblivious of.  If they approached me first, I was suspicious and bitchy.  Yup, bitchy is the word for what I was, in that it is a word that doesn't start with a C that would probably be a better word for how I acted, but people seem to have an aversion to that word for some reason that I am unable to fathom. Anyway, I mean that I was a jerk version of crazy when I wasn't being otherwise crazy and writing, have I mentioned, REALLY horrible poetry... like the kind where each line starts with a letter of the boy's name, and which I carefully calligraphized on floofy purple stationary that I might have rubbed on a perfume sample page of a beauty magazine so he knew it was from a girl and that I then stuck in his locker. After I stalked him and saw that he had seen the poem and hadn't come running to confess his love for me, though he was one of the most sought after boys in school and I had no concept of "out of your league,"  I then carefully extracted said horrible purple calligraphied poem out of his locker while pretending to go to the bathroom, so that it couldn't be used to humiliate me any worse than I had already done myself. Wait that wasn't clear. I meant, I asked my teacher to go to the bathroom so I could stop by his locker and go mission impossible on it, not that I was pretending to pee while I was shoving my fingers through the air holes of the locker to get the embarrassing fucking thing out.

Anyway, yeah, sorry boys, and maybe some girls too, for making you uncomfortable and for being unable to handle having female hormones. I'm much more balanced now, though I am still prone to bouts of adult AAADD... I am just aware of things like restraining orders and mace now, so I have toned it down and there is nothing to be afraid of. And also sorry for the poem. You didn't deserve that. Nobody deserves that... nobody.

Laughter is the best medicine cause it is free.

I'd like to talk about a major issue in my life right now. It's a downer, so prepare yourself.
So, I'm poor. I know I have said that before but when I say I am poor, I mean we survived last year on less than $6,000 income. Like super poor.
And one would think, "Oh, you're taken care of by the state," but nope.  If you don't have kids and you are poor, you can pretty much go fuck yourself... which apparently I have done by becoming ill while poor.
I have been chronically ill for about 8 years now. Longer really, but it has been steady for 8 years. I used to have a job, and I worked, and I loved working. I would even work for free, if they didn't have money to pay me because working was awesome and fun. But then I got sick and I had to go home from work all the time and had to ask people to cover for me, and my job was such that I couldn't just leave when I needed to... I had to wait for someone else to be there before I could go, so it sucked, and it made many people mad at me, and at the end of the year, I got let go. And the next year, my contract wasn't renewed. And then my day to day jobs stopped because I was making errors of judgment from being on pain pills that I was required to take... and then 4 years ago, I stopped working. I was making it through my days by refusing to eat or drink, because those things made me sick and made me have to go home, and working is hard when you have no food in you.  I know models do it, but they just have to stand there and look pretty... they don't have to keep other people safe and alive and stuff.
And the point of telling you that I am poor is to tell you I have no insurance. I have no medicaid, I ain't got shit... except a bunch of chronic illnesses that like to make me miserable and a moral code that tells me it is wrong to run up bills and not pay them.
Beyond that, I have several diseases, all autoimmune, that don't have cures.  My experiences with doctors has been this:

I am certain there is something actually wrong with me that hasn't been diagnosed, as far as my chronic pain and lessening muscle control, but I think I come off to doctors as a hypochondriac.  I say this because I complain and I complain and they just look at me cross-armed and say "Mmhm." and nothing gets done.
I had one doctor lady stand across from me, when I was pleading that she do some test, test for MS maybe because it runs in my family and I have almost all the symptoms of it, and I was being told "we don't know what is wrong so we aren't going to do any more tests on you," please test me, for the love of God, test me,  and she crossed her arms and her legs and said in a nasty accusatory tone, "Do you WANT to have MS?"
And you know, yeah, I would rather be diagnosed with MS when I have most of the symptoms of it anyway, and actually fucking be treated, than to sit in a room with shitty doctors who treat you like crap because you have problems that they don't have a name for. You get screwed because your symptoms are too hard to figure out and testing costs money and you don't have money, and people subsequently think you are making it all up, but you are in pain all the time and you know this is real.
So, I have tried to get help but all of the agencies say that there isn't enough documentation to prove that I am sick enough. Because when I am feeling my worst, I don't want to go sit in a doctor's office, or ER, for hours to tell them "I feel like shit, I am going to take some narcotics and lie in bed for the rest of the day. " Or "I feel like shit, I am puking and crapping and I can't stop." yelled through the bathroom door of the doctor's office because I don't relish the idea of wearing a diaper out in public. Or "Hi, my intestines are bleeding again. I have ulcers on every mucus membrane of my body. I can't sit up because it hurts so bad. You can't do anything about it because taking steroids all the time is going to kill me... so hi, bye, thanks for writing it down after I sat here miserable for 5 hours. That will be $500 I don't have. Please, make sure you call me every day to stress me about it which will make all of this flare worse."
And because it has been suggested that they can't do anything for me, it seems an exercise in futility to mention it. I don't WANT to spend every second thinking about being sick. I want to ignore it and do whatever I can to bring myself joy (like writing this blarg here, that I love, and interacting with all of you), but in order to get any help from any agency that is in place (disability, voc. rehab, etc), it seems that you can't have a moment of joy in your life, which is about how I feel right now. So, please, I can have help nao?

Scrooged.

I'm having a hard time getting into the holiday spirit this year.

For the first time in. . . forever, actually, I think, I cannot afford to send gifts to my friends around the country.

Of course, they will understand, but the problem is, sending things out to people is also MY gift.

The whole process of baking fiddly things and then having to bake more because the monster version of my husband eats half the batch of cookies in the middle of the night, and packaging them up with funny labels, and dealing with the heinously rude jerk mail lady, Betty, after waiting in a giant line, sweating to death because I am wearing 2 sweaters and a fluffy coat and the post office is toasty warm, is my present to myself.
I don't get many presents, so I usually sustain myself by sending things out and being elf-like.  Not LOTR elf-like, more of the Harry Potter/Keeblerish type, and that I can't afford that right now kinda makes me one grumpy asshole.

And unfortunately, "Jesus" being "the reason for the season" doesn't really work for me, because I am Jewish and the Maccabees are the reason for the season, which doesn't ring quite as nicely, since they were an army, and long burning oil during a cleaning binge isn't terribly inspiring. So, barring some unexpected windfall,  I guess this year I'll gorge myself on latkes and Christmas cookies and then I'll go out and find some orphans to kick and maybe staple little antlers on some dormice.

As an aside, I've never understood why they make places so damned hot inside during the winter when people are dressed warmly anyway.  I mean, I don't need it to be negative degrees inside too, but it should be cool enough that people don't get heat stroke while waiting in line, buying eggnog.

Why I don't work for Hallmark.

There are certain times when people tell you things where, despite being pretty good at social responses, there is just no appropriate response available.  It is those times that I most want to make inappropriate cards for people.

This one is great for the stomach bug that seems to be going around this week... or if you have the ability to travel back in time, for people who didn't read the warnings on products that contained Olestra.

You're welcome.

Er... I guess a simple "Sorry!" would have worked too.

NaBlaPoMo, Dontcha Know!

I've decided I am going to do NaBloPoMo (or NaBlaPoMo, in my case)... however, that is going to require that I stop drowning my sorrow in leftover Halloween candy, because otherwise, I am going to be in a candy-induced Carb Coma ™ for the remainder of November, which will make posting EVERY DAY very difficult.

To update, still haven't gotten my money back from Paypal. The remainder of my money was stolen moments before midnight the night before last because for some reason, probably having to do with stupid optimism, naïveté, and a desire for a cheeseburger, my Paypal credit card was not canceled, and I was not given the option to block the hell out of iTunes until the rest of my money was gone... JRose is a little stressed.

But I will be posting every day of National Blarg Posting Month, so you should have at least something to read each day. Be here or be part and parcel of my complete and total mental breakdown!

Cheers!

New York: Secrets Revealed

I've learned from my trip here that all of the toilet paper in New York City is made from sadness and crushed dreams.

Really, I think it may be the reason for the stereotypical bad attitude associated with New Yorkers. They seem like great people, their nether regions are just horribly chaffed.


p.s.

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.

I am Iron Man... er, woman...

This is a dramatic recreation of an actual conversation had with my friend, because my friends are pretty funny.

For the record, I also eat cheese and candy.