My Summer from Hell - Part One: The Surgery

I just got a computer, yesterday, after 5 months of being without so my first task after restoring all my files and programs is posting for you guys. Thank you, Black Friday sales for decent computers cheap enough I can afford. The last time that I was without dedicated computer access for this long was in 1994, my freshman year of college, but most people didn't have computers then, so it wasn't quite as jarring then as it is now, especially when my entire life exists online.

So I wrote on Cheeseblarg's facebook page a while ago that y'all would find it hard to believe all the shit I had been through this summer, for those of you who aren't following along there, and you probably won't, but I assure you, it's all true, and it's absolute bullshit.

My wish for the upcoming year is that I never have to hear the words, "We're afraid it might be cancer," ever a-fucking-gain from a doctor. This summer started with a mysterious mass in my cervix. I went to the doctor in June because I was experiencing this weird feeling of all of my insides dropping when I stood up for more than 15 minutes which in itself is pretty alarming, but it was accompanied with sweating and feeling like I was going to pass out. Once it got to the point that I couldn't stand long enough to shower without feeling like I was dying, I decided I should probably do something about it, so I bucked up and went to have my lady bits probed by a stranger. I mean, she was a professional, not just some random person on the street with a speculum and a hankering for some gynecological exploring.

Since scraping my lady bits turned up nothing, we went to the next step of sonic spelunking. This revealed the aforementioned "mysterious mass" and then we went to the next step of traumatizing me forever and ever, amen.

Frankly, the whole business gives me more ammunition for the idea that there is a grand conspiracy of hatred for women in this world because I cannot believe that any kind of human rights coalition would allow the equivalent to a cervical/uterine biopsy to be done to any man without general anesthetic. And I've heard that testicular biopsies are done under local and still hurt like hell, but I'm arguing that that is not really equivalent, because testes are not muscles that try to slam shut when you drill pieces out of them causing your entire body to try to escape from what's going on in your nether regions. It was really awful.  So awful in fact, that before I even left that appointment, I made plans with my doctor, before the results came back, to have my uterus and accompanying accouterments removed as soon as possible so I would no longer have a cervix so that procedure could never ever happen to me again.

And my uterus was mint, guys, never been used, though it had been remodeled monthly since I was about 10, so I don't know if I could have gotten full price for it. Anyway, it's totally lost its value now because I took it out of the box. At the end of August, I had them remove my reproductive organs (though I kept my ovaries so they can grow cysts and be generally annoying to keep me off of hormone replacement therapy), and I finally finished healing last month after one of the holes popped open in a cinematic fashion when we thought they were all almost closed.
So that's the story of how I spent 3 months worrying that I had cancer before having a hysterectomy. I didn't have uterine or cervical cancer, but my cervix was faulty and if I had kept it, I would have continued to need biopsies regularly and it would have continued to make me feel like I was dying, and frankly, I wasn't planning on using it anyway, and I'm much happier to have it gone.

Spending all the time in a gynecologist's office, of course, led to appointments with mammography. And instead of just being routine, of course, I got my next, "it might be cancer." I was supposed to be going tomorrow, in fact, to have a lumpectomy to ensure that the tumor they found in my breast during the first biopsy is completely non-cancerous, but I got an ear infection, so now I get to add two more weeks to my 3 months of waiting to find out that this one is nothing too.

And I know that countless people who aren't so lucky would love to be told that it is nothing repeatedly, but having six months of your body constantly trolling you that is mutating and is gonna kill you only to have it yell "PSYCH" after you've had surgeries and near constant stress diarrhea, is relieving as hell, but also really fucking annoying that you had to go through all of that in the first place when your body could have just stopped growing benign tumors in the first damned place.

So that's part one of my trauma. I'm thinking I can wrap it up in one other post, hopefully, next week.

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

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!

Cheeseblarg's Guide to Not Hating Everyone and Everything

This Tumblr post was brought to my attention recently and it strikes me as something that's really important to share:

http://thespoontheory.tumblr.com/post/137585788887/riotrite-cream-and-stars

Though it hadn't completely occurred to me, it goes along with my general philosophy on life and that philosophy is this:

If something bothers you and you can't control it, always try to come up with a situation in which it is completely reasonable so it is more bearable.

It is probably part of the reason why I excel at fiction writing, and humor writing to boot. I am always imagining reasons why people behave the way that they do so that is is less insulting to me. I can almost always come up with a creative reason why bad behaviour is excusable, so I am rarely upset for long when strangers are jerks (or make products that would otherwise be silly if not considered in the right context).

How many times have you come out of a store to find a car is parked 4 inches away from your driver's side door so you can't get into your car without crawling over the passenger's side seat, possibly causing you to become biblically familiar with your gear shift?

Inexcusable if the person is just a lazy asshole, BUT if  you imagine that the driver was about to have explosive diarrhea and needed to get into the store so fast they didn't have time to park right? I'd give them a pass! I know what that's like, and sometimes, not ruining your pants/car interior/everything, always and forever, is worth parking like a jackhole.

Ever have a waitron who seems like she is competing for world's grumpiest server? You smile sweetly at her, say please and thank you, don't make any unreasonable requests or uncomfortable jokes, you're the ultimate diner but nothing can make her lighten up? In fact, you've been her patron many times in the past and have tipped her 30% but she still treats you like you stole her boyfriend and parked right up against her driver's side door?

While you might want to request another table when you can, if you get stuck in her section, you can just pretend the poor lady is experiencing a terrible case of vulvodynia. If your genitals hurt all the time and you had to bring pancakes to people all day, how nice would you be?



How about this?

If only nature would find a way to cover these oranges so we didn't need to waste so much plastic on them. pic.twitter.com/00YECaHB4D

— Nathalie Gordon (@awlilnatty) March 3, 2016

Plastic is no doubt wasteful, but there has got to be a reason other than overconsumption or laziness that naked oranges are good right? Thinking about the dialogue above, we can understand that there are some people whose needs outweigh the dismay at convenience packaging. I know that with the hammer-smashy hand arthritis I've had, having a pre-peeled orange would be a godsend... if I could eat citrus without it exploding my bladder, of course.

That is not to say that people should have carte blanche to act like dickbags because other people will excuse them. Like in the example above, there are likely much less wasteful ways to package peeled fruit that can simultaneously make them easy to consume while not using a buttload of plastic. Like covering them in fondant or a hard candy shell! (<---That's a funny joke for people who will be mad about putting dirty sugar around healthy natural fruit...)

There are people, though, who we all damned well know don't have excuses, who are just so self-absorbed that they're horrible to other people and it shouldn't be allowed, and I thank you for calling those people out, BUT there are definitely times when you can't really control other people and if you tire of being indignant (which is totally understandable, because lately, there is so much to be indignant about), you can make up little stories in your head so you don't have to wallow in the misery of all the assholes in the world.

with the chance of extra exclusive content!

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:

New Year's Resolution: Abracadabra!

About 15 years ago, I made a New Year's Resolution to never make a new year's resolution ever again and I have kept it for a really long time.

The resolution before that was not to date anyone who I was not attracted to upon first meeting them. If you'll remember the story of Evil Mike, you will understand where this came from.

This year, I am breaking my resolution not to resolve anymore, because I have an important resolution to make.

I have been wearing bras since I was in 5th grade. That is approximately 3/4ths of my life and for 28 years, having my bra straps fall off of my shoulder has been the bane of my existence. I have even considered having metal bolts, a la Frankenstein, inserted into my shoulders to keep my damned bra straps from falling down.

After getting a proper fitting bra, last year, for the first time ever (thanks to Jen Yates), I realized exactly why all of my straps are like limp noodles.

For all of my bra wearing life, I have been performing the Houdini Bra Removal Procedure.
You all know this, right? The action that guys marvel at?

I've been doing this for 28 years... always, even when I took off my shirt directly afterwards. It is kind of ridiculous that it never occurred to me that doing magic tricks with my bra was going to damage it.

So from here on out, I resolve not to take off my bra Houdini-Style ever again, especially when I am just going to take my shirt off immediately anyway.

Some Like It Hot!

Someone needs to take my adult badge away...

This is the second time I have burned myself this week. 

The first time, I was melting wax on my stove to use while felting and I accidentally placed my hand on the element. I think I should get a pass on that one, because I have one of those flat top stoves and when the element area is being lazy, it's black (instead of glowing red) like the rest of stove top (Wow, that comes off as really racist upon reading it aloud).

Tonight's burning really is putting me in the realms of, "You can't use the stove any more."

I was innocently heating up a tortilla to make another pulled pork soft taco to eat while watching "We Are The Millers" and the tortilla, which I had just placed in the pan that had been sitting over heat for a few minutes, wasn't particularly warm when I touched it, so I lifted it up and put the back of my fingers directly on the pan... that had been sitting on the heat for a few minutes. As you might expect, which somehow I didn't, it was hot. Very fucking hot. I will need adult supervision until further notice.

This is not about Google, the bastards.

My doctor prescribed new Fibromyalgia medication. I just titrated* up to two a day. They make me feel like this. Almost.

*My dictionary doesn't know the word "titrated." Clearly, it doesn't have any sort of medical issues. Checking that it is correct via google** and waiting a really long time for everything to load is really beyond my scope of patience right now. But I did it anyway, for you. But my computer is really slow. It doesn't seem to be made for my new drawing program, or maybe it is because I never restart it, because I don't have the patience to wait for shit to load when I do. I want a new computer.

** My dictionary also doesn't know the word "google" which is pretty fucking stupid since I have the "Ask Google for Suggestions" option check.  You would think that Google would suggest that google was fucking correct. Oh, it wants to be capitalized. Well, fuck you Google, you should know that you are now a verb and not a proper verb (is there such thing as a proper verb?) so you don't get to be capitalized when I am verbing you***.  You are just so vain. You probably think this post is about you. Well, it's not. It is about me being stoned because Tylenol makes me sleepy, so Neurontin is making me fly on a pink sparkly pega-narwhal, so fuck you, Google.

***Oh, wait, my bad. I wasn't verbing you, was I? I blame the drugs for that outburst. I'm sorry. I love you Google.

Dropsy

My hands are uncooperative today. 

Earlier today, I dropped my Kindle on my face while reading, giving myself a fat lip (though, as I said on twitter shortly after it happened, I was glad it was the kindle and not The Stand by Stephen King, which is what I was actually reading on the kindle, because that book would have given me a fat lip and knocked my tooth out... it's really big).

Before I started writing this, I grabbed my remote control to mute the show that was on TV to watch a video on Facebook and I ended up losing my grip on the remote and launching it at my laptop screen. I was concerned that it had broken the screen, but it seems to be okay. 

I think my point is, don't have me hold your baby today.

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.

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.

Queen of the Nerds

I'm supposed to be writing a Secret Cupid Valentine Exchange Round-up because it went really well, but unfortunately, I received The Big Bang Theory on DVD for Valentine's day from my friend Vez, so I have no desire to do anything but fall in love with fictional nerds who will also ignore me and, on occasion, make me cry.  It is like single life all over again.
I must say, I'm proud of myself for understanding so many of the jokes (and not just laughing because they said something I didn't understand at all, which is what I imagine a lot of people do). I am disappointed that they referred to giving electric shocks as "negative reinforcement" when talking about operant conditioning. Any psychology nerds out there will understand my ire. Everyone else will just continue to call me nit-picky and say that I am too serious, but what the hell is the purpose of giving things names if we are just going to call psychological techniques anything we damned well please?!  Also, unrelated to the show, don't get me started on schizophrenia being stupidly and incorrectly mistaken for multiple personality disorders in popular culture. Seriously, cringe-worthy.



So, I'm going to do the round up tomorrow, most likely, and in the meantime, back to my imaginary nerd harem.

It was taking way too long, attempting to draw convincing comic versions of the cast. I don't have the patience while I am jonesing to watch more.

Some things, not so helpful.

I'm a smart ass.

 Beyond that, I tend to think very literally sometimes, which is fairly apparent in my humor stylings.

As a result, I have a hard time not being a psychic jerk to people who stand on the side of the roads panhandling, when they have stupid signs. By psychic jerk, I mean I don't actually antagonize real people, but I fantasize about it, because being a jerk in real life sucks but in your imagination, it is awesome.

The sign that bothers me most is the "ANYTHING HELPS!" sign.

I think you really need to be specific about what ACTUALLY helps. If I ever find myself in a situation where I need to beg for money on the side of the road, I already have my sign planned.

Congress

So good news, I'm NORMAL! (says the doctor I saw today) Only not really, at all. I just was so awesome before that my normal is like slug for other people and until I get money to see someone else or become a total invalid, I can suck it.

Actually, they say I am depressed, and I think if they say that just a few more times, I may actually become depressed (which might be their goal), or I might start lighting things on fire randomly while shouting gibberish and eating good and plentys, which should tell you how much I dislike being told that I am depressed when I am not motherfucking depressed.

Now stressed? I am stressed. I wish they would give me a prescription to deal with said overwhelming stress as it would entail a large never-depleting bank account, a personal masseuse, a bacon butler ™, and lots of ME time.

The problem I see.

So, I went to the eye doctor (aka eye touching motherfuckers). It was the first time I've been to an actual eye doctor since 1983. They did all their tests, which are much less traumatizing now than they were in 1983, and my vision seemed completely normal, perfect, in fact.
For perhaps a year, I have been complaining that I FEEL like my vision in my right eye is shrouded, but it isn't. I understand that doesn't make sense, but when I look out of each eye separately, each eye is perfectly normal, but with both eyes open, it feels like my left eye sees clearer than my right.
So after doing all of the tests, I told the doctor exactly that, and he said "OH! Let me do one more test!"
And then he gave me lenses so I could see, because apparently dilating the hell out of your eyes makes them not focus. And as an aside, I don't understand how anyone who has perfect vision who then develops severe far sidedness doesn't immediately jump off a bridge. I was close and I only had to put up with it for 6 hours.
Anyway, he had me hold lenses in front of my eyes so I could see anything that wasn't 40 feet away, and had me cover my left eye and then my right and this is what I saw:

The left side is the left eye and the right, is the right... funny how that works.

This is called a "Red Cap Desaturation Test" by the way.

He explained to me that the difference in my ability to see colors now is not a problem with my physical eye but is a neurological problem. He didn't give me an actual diagnosis but sent the report to my doctors (who I have demanded take all this stuff seriously). I go to the neurologist on Thursday, so I should have more information for us all then, though Dr. Google has already given me a sound diagnosis that does not surprise me at all.




Also, remember, today is the last day to sign up to give a stranger an AWESOME VD*! Sign up for da Cheeseblarg's Secret Cupid Exchange before midnight.

No actual venereal diseases should be sent, VD is meant to refer to Valentines Day, because VD is a Special Trading Day!

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?

By Tuesday, I will no longer be a liar.

I've been lying to you all.  I've shamelessly misrepresented myself.
Last week, there was a mix-up and I missed an appointment to get my bangs trimmed (that is my fringe for OG English speakers).  I've needed a bang trim since before I went to NYC in fact, and instead of drawing myself as I actually look, I have continued to draw myself with cute short bangs. I'm sorry.  But there is a reason.

Now, I am cute.  I have no doubt about it, but when my  bangs get to a certain length, it causes some sort of illusion wherein I look like a frumpy cross dressing cave man.

Perhaps it is the hair in my eyes that causes this visual disturbance, but it can only be combated by wearing more makeup than I usually have the patience to wear, and since I don't draw any realistic features on my cartoon representation, it is easier to just create the same effect by making my bangs the right length.

Believe me, I did it for you... and also for me... because I'm vain and don't want to be hassled by scientists thinking they've found a missing link.

OH, and my Coco Llama,  the actual piece that was in the museum in NYC is now for sale on eBay.  Share it with everyone you know. I still need to pay for that trip!

CLICKY to go to EBAY

Why should this year be any different?

It was silly of me to think I could get through a holiday without any sort of ridiculous issue.  For years now, I manage to have some sort of illness that totally screws up the holiday season.

Last year, I had a virus syndrome that lasted two weeks, during which time I was bed ridden, that spanned from two days before the premier of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1, so I couldn't go to the midnight showing, through Thanksgiving.  I'd had a big fancy menu picked out and went shopping well ahead of time, but when Thanksgiving came around, I couldn't get out of bed without coughing so hard it caused my back to go out. But still, I was going to get up, for my husband's sake.  When I got into the kitchen to start the turkey, my mother had already started cooking the food I bought.

"What did you put on the turkey?" I inquired.  I had planned an orange and sage butter rub.

"Butter spray, salt and pepper."

Butter spray? Didn't they stop selling that in the 80s? Apparently not, but she had not sprayed the turkey with butter or liquidized margarine, she had sprayed it with butter flavored generic Pam, which sent me over the edge into a coughing yelling rage.  Which was, in actuality, because of my stupid jerk allergies that cause me to have to pay more to get food that everyone else can buy for reasonable prices to avoid becoming extremely sick, hence my unreasonable reaction to defiling the poor, very expensive bird with cooking spray. And I can be a total jerk sometimes...plus that sucker was just coated in pepper.  Thankfully, I had no appetite anyway from being sick, so I rubbed the turkey with a stick of butter and squeezed an orange over it, had some can-shaped cranberry sauce, and went back to bed.

This year, I thought it was smooth sailing. I've managed to avoid getting my nephew's cold, I have been diligent about washing my hands to avoid germs from strangers... and then this morning at 6 am, I woke up unable to move my neck without excruciating pain. When I got up, I realized it extended all the way down to my shoulder blades. So I have two options, I can either make our Thanksgiving feast while doing a Quasimodo impersonation, or I can take a muscle relaxer and relive the wedding scene from Sixteen Candles.

OR

(there is a video here, non-page viewers)