WHAT CLASSIC MOVIE ARE YOU?

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

errr, not quite...

not sure that i agree with this one, but i'll post it anyhoo:

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Mother Teresa?!?!?

once again, molly nails it...

molly ivins is right on - her recap of 2004 says it all...read it at working for change's web site

the final paragraph seems to me exactly how i feel looking back at this year and forward to next:

"Well, friends, the old ball is starting another orbit of the sun, giving us all a chance to do better this time. Let's not blow it, because we sure look like dogmeat after this one."

*yawn*

dunno if it's the change in meds or something else going on, but if sleeping was an olympic sport, these days i would be an olympic gold medalist - setting unbeatable world records, noless.

it ain't brain surgery...

...oh yeah, i guess it is...

met up with a couple more docs at iu on tuesday - dr. pettigrew was first on the schedule - he's an internal medicine doc they sent me to in order to give me a general check-up and clearance for surgery...assuming nothing majorly weird comes back from my lab work (which i don't think will happen), i think i've got his thumbs up...

dr. worth was the other doc i met - he's the doc that will actually be performing the surgery...he gave a general overview of the procedure, mentioned the statistics, all that fun stuff...someone from the office will be calling to schedule the Wada test for me, then the surgery would be a couple weeks after that - now we're looking at february for that to be happening...

meanwhile, the docs are shifting around the seizure meds i'm taking and things are annoying, but there's light at the end of the tunnel...

the weekend...

on friday, mom and i went to see closer - interesting movie, tho it wasn't what i expected - at least now every time i hear the word closer i won't think of the nine inch nails song and automatically think "i wanna fuck you like an animal"

on saturday afternoon kat and i went to see john take his test for tae kwon do - now he's a green belt! kat mistakenly told me last time that he was got his green belt last time, so i had gotten him a matching pair of green panties, so NOW he has a pair of pair of panties to match his tae kwon do belt. heh heh heh, once he gets the black belt, i think we'll hafta go all out and get garters and who knows what else...

then we went to michelle's xmas party last night - took kat and john with me to join in the festivities...i dunno, i'm just not feeling that christmas spirit crap this year...*shrug* it was a very nice party and it was nice to get out and all, but it just seems to take such an effort - guess that's the depression in me talking. *shrug* the seizures are acting up as well, this week's loaded with doc's appointments. and of course kat had to make a big deal to michelle about how i'm not getting out too much to see people - well dammit, part of that's because of being sick and such. i know she means well and all, but part of me was a bit pissed off.

adam's thanksgiving...

while the rest of the family was here in the states eating turkey and doing the rest of the traditional stuff, my brother adam spent his thanksgiving in australia, performing at several gigs - he sent me this link to video from one of his performances...

How evil are you?

How evil are you?

awake - i think?

surreal couple of days - sunday evening i started feeling sickly, nauseous and such - by monday morning i'd been puking my guts out, to the point that at 8am it seemed far too long to wait an hour for the doc's office to open, so we went ahead and visited the emergency room. (not being able to keep anything down is bad when ya take 349085 prescription meds) additionally, i'm sure all the puking dehydrated me - my skull is shrinking by the millisecond, and the pain is almost too much to bear.

so, after seeing a few nurses, physician's assistants and a doctor, they pumped me full of anti-nausea meds and gave me an i.v. bag full of fluids - couple hours later i'm sent home on my merry way with some rx's. right now is the first time i've been somewhat coherent since that time - the drugs i took really knocked me on my ass, to the point that it scared mom. i was just glad to be able to get some sleep and not be puking my guts out...

of course, i would have to be sick for an evening that i have plans...alas, another time...

Thanksgiving 2004

pretty strange turkey day, i must say...

first thing that was glaringly obvious was the lack of numbers - the usual family members were scattered around instead of all showing up at the same time and place...

my brother's had some ups and downs as far as the music biz goes, but he finally got some decent paying gigs - too bad they're around the holidays, on the other fucking side of the planet...he's spending thanksgiving in australia and xmas in slovenia...yeah, i suppose there are times when i don't always get to see him for the holidays, but just knowing it's 9pm thursday here and it's noon on friday where he is right now just sorta sucks...

one thing mom and i were looking forward to was seeing all of my cousins' kids - since adam and i aren't providing her with any grandbabies, we've latched on to them as surrogates...(granted, these "babies range in age from 1 to 6,7,8 years in age)...at the last minute, my aunt heard from her daughter that she was gonna be spending thanksgiving at her dad's house, so no babies to fawn over...so instead of a full house of loud babies, it was a house with the youngest person being 12 years old and the house being nowhere near full...a very strange experience - not bad, just different...

July - poetry by Robin Denman

hey folks, July is a chapbook of poetry by Robin Denman...it's available at Out Word Bound Books - Robin was at games night and so I got her to sign my copy. read it over the weekend and was very impressed - i definitely recommend it, and not just cuz she's a games night buddy and fellow Cowboy Junkies fan...

Girls Games Night...

forced myself to get out and be social, went to Out Word Bound for games night. pretty big crowd, a dozen of us playing and more coming in and out to say hi...don't know why it's so hard to do it, when i really enjoy going out and seeing people, but ugh, it can just be soooo draining...*shrug* question for the shrink to answer, i suppose...

white noise...

that seems to be what's filling up the gaps between the neurons these days - my brain's working, but there just doesn't seem to be much going on of any consequence - just kind of going through the motions...

lah de dah...

Saying the F-word...

Hot bifem babe Betty Blue sent out this msg with some info that y'all might find interesting:

Nobody seems to be talking about it, Democrats are afraid to whisper the word for fear of looking like fools (guess what? we *already* look like fools)...but some of us are starting to say the F-word outloud: FRAUD. My position? Um...they did it once, badly, and yet it worked...why wouldn't they learn how to do it better the next time to gain an air of legitimacy?

I'm putting out these links in case anyone else thinks something smells bad about this election and wants to help or find out more. Feel free to read or not.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ (I'll be donating money to the effort to launch a complete investigation into the vote as soon as I get paid.)

http://www.democraticunderground.com

http://pages.ivillage.com/americans4america/id20.html

At least one mainstream journalist is reporting on this:

http://home.comcast.net/~hugh.moore/countdown_on_voting_irregs.wmv

Olbermann's blog today on the responses to last night's show:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/

Ongoing liberal talk radio about this and other current issues (particularly Mike Malloy and Randi Rhodes...listening to Randi right now): http://www.airamericaradio.com

And some members of congress agree that something stinks:
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65623,00.html (note: three more congressmen have signed on since this report)

Off to get my black bracelet...
Betty

=====
betty@backseatbetty.net http://www.backseatbetty.net

more to add to the wardrobe?

damn, and here i'd just sent off for a new batch of t-shirts from tshirthumor.com - john baynham's designs are pretty cool...i get quite a few comments on my "Have a Pheasant Plucking Day" shirt...now they've just added a page of shirts relating to the election - i particularly like the 4 more years and blue person messages...

7 doctors in 5 weeks...

feeling a bit overwhelmed right now, as i look through my date book and realize that, between appointments with doctors to determine my eligibility for social security disability, as well as consultations with doctors for the upcoming brain surgery (which should be a slight hint that i might be a wee bit disabled), i have SEVEN APPOINTMENTS WITH DOCTORS IN A FIVE WEEK PERIOD! and five of those doctors i've never even met before, and want all the pertinent records, et al, to properly analyze me. sheesh!

think i'll avoid the mass exodus...

what with all the changes coming with the influx of neocon ultrareligious homophobes into the federal government, a change of address and citizenship is a naturally occuring thought. i think that rather than heading north to defect to canada like most of my fellow bloggers write that they'll be doing, perhaps i'll go visit the ol' relatives in norway...

immigration to norway isn't really on my agenda yet - let's hope it doesn't ever come to that - but it is nice to be in the know about it: "A person has a right to asylum in Norway if he or she has a well-founded fear of persecution in his or her country of origin. The cause of the persecution must be race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion...Persecution that particularly affects women and persecution due to sexual orientation may also provide grounds for asylum."

so, i could look up my granddad's family, do some skiing, maybe try some lutefisk...Uff Da!

the morning after...

alas, it was nice to be at matt's election night party and be amongst others that were as depressed and discouraged as myself about the impending election results...

the guy on CNN had it right...

a guy in the crowd behind the set of the CNN election coverage wore a t-shirt that very adequately expressed my feelings on this whole election cycle...it read:

FUCK THIS SHIT

rather amusing to see that popping up on television (quick, someone call the FCC!!)...

*yawn* ugh, still too close to call on the kerry/bush race, but it looks like mitch daniels is the new governor of indiana. *8-P

happy halloween!

no big costume events or anything this year, going to a little get-together with kat at her soon-to-be-roommate sherry's soon-to-be-former-living-space...

i suppose if i HAD dressed up this year (in a costume, that is, for some halloween-related festivity) i woulda done some warped takeoff on a brain surgeon, what with the surgery coming up next year and all...

the Erotic Arts Ball...

Kat and I just returned from the Erotic Arts Ball - rather interesting evening, i must say. i'm soooo totally exhausted right now, but i did have a very good time, even if Kat and Brandy did their best to girlify me and put makeup on me and such. i told them it really didn't bother me, and it doesn't - just because i don't choose to wear the stuff on a regular basis doesn't mean i'm vehemently opposed to it or anything - my not wearing makeup isn't a major political statement or anything like that. and as i told kat, i'm comfortable enough in my womanhood to allow her to put girly stuff on me if she so chooses. *8-) she seemed to find a contradiction in the "comfortable enough in my womanhood" and not wearing makeup part, but i don't. it just ain't my thang, but what the hell, every once in a while, do something different!

those red kettles will be a little lighter this year...

this conversation on fark about Salvation Army bell ringers brings up an interesting point that i hadn't thought about before - their stance on homosexuality. in a nutshell, they don't want ya to pick on gay people, and they'll help you if you need their services, but dammit, you queers need to not be havin any sex or expectin to get married or try for any of that equality stuff. sort of a take-off of separate but equal - "not separate, but not equal either"...

the change i usually throw into the kettles during the holiday season will go elsewhere - to a charity that doesn't have such a discriminatory policy - and i'll drop them a little note to let them know the reason they're not getting my money.

one thing that irked me about the fark conversation was the comments made by several people to the effect of "of course they discriminate against gays - they're a CHRISTIAN organization" - ummm, the two are NOT automatically joined together...

Just in case you were still undecided...

100 Facts and 1 Opinion: The Non-Arguable Case Against the Bush Administration

Not Fooling Anybody...

i might just have to accept a position as a Not Fooling Anybody Ranger - seems we have lots of locations around Indianapolis that would fit in well at this site...now where's that digital camera?

announcing my candidacy...

well, isn't this special, a week before election day, and it becomes official...i've just received word that i'm a candidate! lucky for me that it's not an office that i've earned candidacy for - it's brain surgery!

just got off the phone with my contact at IU and she says that it appears that we're a go for brain surgery at the beginning of next year! just have several more consultations with docs and a couple of tests to get out of the way, but the big questionable things are outta the way!!

one thing i need to do before surgery is lose some weight - now i hafta figure out how to do that - i'm debating whether or not i should do the dietary supplement thing like mom's done...i just don't know that i have the will power. whatever weight i lose, i want it to stay off for good, i don't want to just lose a ton of weight just for the surgery and just put it all back on once it's all over with. it's gonna have to be a major change, and i'm not sure that i can put 100% into it right now. gonna talk with my endocrinologist and see what her opinion is on the situation.

also have to have a consultation with a psychiatrist - since i have a history of depression, they wanna see me and get a history and an idea of what my baseline is so that they have something to go by after surgery, since depression is a possibility after surgery. i'll be meeting up with dr. bowman, (the IU shrink) the day before thanksgiving.

i know my regular doc will be okay with the brain surgery idea, so they're gonna send me to one of their internal medicine docs to get another opinion - haven't found out when i'll be meeting dr. pettigrew for this consultation, but it'll probably be sometime before the year is over...

dr. worth is the surgeon that will be performing the surgery - i'll probably be meeting him for a consulation before going under the knife as well. he'll be the one to administer the Wada test (where they put half my brain to sleep and make sure i can still function) in January.

it's becoming even more real...scary as hell, but really exciting too.

redheaded...

well, sort of...i'm definitely not blonde anymore. kat got rid of all the blonde remnants in my hair, and put in red streaks (not red - RED. magma red!)...took a couple seconds to get used to, but i like it - i think it'll surprise a lot of people, particularly codi. fine by me though, i like to keep people guessing. *8-)

the neuropsychological evaluation...

friday's neuropsych evaluation went alright, i think. made me realize my memory's not as good as i'd like to think it is, although i think some of that may be attributed to the fact that i didn't get any sleep the night before.

first off, i met with dr. kareken, gave him the whole brain history, story of my seizures, et al...

then he sent in an associate to administer all the tests.

she'd read off a list of numbers to me - 2 4 9 1 8 - and i'd have to say them back to her in order. then lists of numbers - 8 3 4 6 2 - that i'd have to recall back to her in reverse. then i'd have to tell her what the definition of certain words meant - democracy, catalog, and so on. she told me a story and i had to repeat back as many details as possible. then she told another story, and i had to repeat as many details as possible on that one. she gave me a picture of an abstract drawing to copy. then she had me try to draw it from memory. then i had to remember details from the first story, then the second story. then i had to try to draw the picture again. then she showed me a series of photos in an array on sheets of paper and i had to tell her if the people were on the paper and if they were, which position they were in. she gave me a list of words to remember, then i had to tell her which ones i could remember. then i had to tell her which ones in the list were vegetables, which were modes of transportation. then she gave me another list, and we repeated the process for that list - tell her what i remembered, tell her the veggies, tell her the transportation. then she wanted me to go back and remember what i could from the first list.

i must say, i'm very curious as to what all the results say about me neuropsychologically...

testing...

ugh, hafta be downtown tomorrow at that ungodly hour of 8am for more pre-surgical evaluation/testing. this time i'm headed to Riley Hospital to meet with a Neuropsychologist - David Kareken, Ph.D. the info that's been sent to me tells me the exam will measure brain functions such as memory, attention/concentration, language and visual perception. fun fun fun!

slowly getting back to "normal"...

now that i'm outta the hospital, it appears that i'm getting sick - head's all stuffed up and i'm coughing up all sorts of crunchy things in my chest - blech.

yesterday, kat treated me to some belated birthday celebration activities - we went and saw Shark Tale and had dinner at Steak & Ale (wow, that rhymes!)

time for some more sleep...

HOME!!!

yay! home from the hospital! i was there a little longer than expected, but eventually had the seizures the docs wanted, got them captured on video and now i'm home, 9 days later! i'm gonna be picking glue outta my hair and adhesive off my body for who knows how long now...

amazing how exhausting lying in bed, hooked up to computers and 28429 wires can be. *yawn*

line of the day...week...hell, a GREAT line, period.

James Spader's smarmy lawyer Alan Shore on "Boston Legal" (a spinoff of "the Practice") is a trip...i didn't think he could be as weird in a lawyer role as he was in Secretary (that movie ROCKS), but i just may be mistaken...Alan Shore is quite a character...

tonight, as he offered to rub an uneasy co-worker's feet, he said:
"Don't worry, it's nothing personal, it's just a fetish."
might hafta use that line myself sometime - kat liked it so much she wrote it down, we were both rather amused.

Elizabeth Mitchell is playing his crazy ex-wife, apparently in a recurring role - damn, she's hot! and she's got a knack for getting roles with other hot people as well - with angelina jolie in gia, again doing the lesbo thang on er with doc kerry weaver, now the alan shore character...lemme just say the woman can eat crackers in my bed any time she wants...

courtesy of Aunt Sherry...

A male whale and a female whale were swimming off the coast of Japan when
they noticed a whaling ship. The male whale recognized it as the same ship
that had harpooned his father many years earlier. He said to the female
whale, "Lets both swim under the ship and blow out of our air holes at the
same time and it should cause the ship to turn over and sink.
They tried it and sure enough, the ship turned over and quickly sank. Soon
however, the whales realized the sailors had jumped overboard and were
swimming to the safety of shore.

The male was enraged that they were going to get away and told the female
"lets swim after them and gobble them up before they reach the shore."
At this point, he realized the female was becoming reluctant to follow him.
"Look", she said, "I went along with the blow job, but I absolutely refuse
to swallow the seamen."

dubya, you're leaving the children behind...

Regardless of where you stand on the Iraq war situation, this has to make you stop and think...

i dunno how long the link on Channel 13's website will last, so lemme just cut/paste the story here:

School children get a lesson on soldiers leaving for war

Rich Van Wyk/Education Reporter

Indianapolis, Oct. 8 - Only one person didn't know it really wasn't a Columbus Day celebration. Nine hundred teachers and students pulled a fast one, making Friday Gregory Conley's Day.

A math and science teacher, a friend of students and the father of two small children, he was a man at a loss for words. "How do you say thank you?"

Conely, a sargent in the Army reserves is headed to Iraq.

Students and coworkers have known for weeks, but until Friday kept their emotions under wraps.

This is the second time the Army is calling Conley to duty. After three months in Wisconsin they sent him home. This time he expects to spend more than a year in the war zones of Iraq counseling troops.

"I am completely stunned and overwhelmed how students and staff have shown their support."

Students call Conely a good teacher and a great friend.

And Conely will miss his children as well, all 900 of them.

Reading the story doesn't compare to seeing it on the news (especially since Van Wyk pronounced sargent [sic] correctly) but reading it online sickened me all over again.

Now let's think about this situation for a second: the guy's a teacher, with two small kids, and in addition to this he serves his country in the Reserve. Then go to the Reserve website and take a look at the Mission Statement of the Reserve. Lemme point out a few of the highlights of the Mission of the Reserve and provide some of my own commentary to Dubya:

Maintaining a force that can mobilize rapidly and skillfully at any moment to respond to a crisis or situation, or to defend America's interests at home and abroad.

- George, the key word there is DEFEND, particularly if you're going abroad and sending reservists to do it. Going on a Saddam hunt in the name of 9/11 is OFFENSIVE as both a noun and an adjective.

Implementing national objectives.

- George, weren't you the "No Child Left Behind" guy? Oh yeah, guess now you can change that slogan to "No Teachers Left Behind - We're Sending 'Em To Iraq" - seeing all the kids in the gym hugging and crying and talking about their favorite teacher leaving. Guess it's not your fault George, it's Conley's - by signing on as a Reservist he's decided that he'll be the one to leave the children behind when you want to start wars with other countries

Preserving the peace and security, and providing for the defense of the United States, the Territories, Commonwealths and Possessions, and any areas occupied by the United States.

- George! Once again: the key word is DEFENSE.

Overcoming aggressive acts from nations and terrorist groups that imperil the peace and security of the United States.

- The aggressive acts are coming FROM the United States - we're the ones imperiling the peace and security.

and the last one on the list is the kicker...

Giving back to the community by providing civil support, i.e. food, shelter, safe drinking water and medical attention to our citizens during emergencies and natural disasters.

- The emergencies facing the United States now could probably be resolved if we kept our citizens at home, doing their jobs (those of us that still have them, that is) and stopped trying to bully the rest of the world. While I have no doubt in Sergeant Conley's abilities as a soldier, I suspect that his community/civil support roles would be fulfilled by doing his REGULAR JOB at this time. And as the Reserve motto so eloquently puts it: Army Reserve: It's Not Your Everyday Job - it SHOULDN'T be, but he himself believes he'll be in Iraq for at least a year.

ugh, it's just so damned disgusting...

oh wait, i forgot, Dubya doesn't read the news, so i'm sure he wouldn't read my blog or anything that the Army posted on their website either...oh well...

lagging in the blogging department...

yeah, i know, over a week since i've last blogged...lots gone on since i've last blogged - out of intensive therapy, had a birthday, getting ready to go into the hospital for my weeklong video eeg, and so on and so forth...i'll try to do some catching up this weekend before my trip to the hospital commences at 7am monday...

cute .sig file, donna... ;-)

I’ll bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween. ~ Anonymous

last day of the Intensive Outpatient Program...

i graduated this morning - no more of that 3 hours a day, 3 days a week minimum group therapy stuff for me! i'm not cured or anything, but i know i've learned a lot more about myself and others and some valuable coping skills that i didn't have before. i hate goodbyes, but i know it's for the best, and it probably should've been done sooner.

there's a bit of a ritual when someone leaves the program - charles has this basket of stones...the graduate picks out a stone that grabs their attention and it gets passed around the room, each person taking a moment to say something about their experience with the graduate or whatever...meanwhile, the graduate has to remain silent - just shut up and take it...ugh, i can't take a compliment to save my life...it's always interesting to see what people see about other people, what sorts of things make impressions on people...then, after everyone's talked, turnabout's fair play and the graduate has this stone with all these good vibes put into it and can say whatever she/he wants to say. i was just left sort of speechless.

onto the next chapter...

September 14 was a rather expensive day...

thirteen days - not even two weeks - and IU's sent me a bill for my day of pre-surgical testing...the MRI/interictal SPECT/PET scan combo...not a bill, really, just a warning of what they're sending to the insurance company.

$4,114.00

sheesh. and we still have a weeklong video EEG and the neuropsychological testing to go through. damn, i'm expensive.

*twiddle*

'nother bout of insomnia has kicked in - probably anxiety about today being the last day of IOP...i can't turn my brain off.

i've always been this way - impending changes freak me out...the first day of school was always huge, i never got sleep the night before - i'd lie in bed, awake, pondering what the new school year would bring. wish i knew how to just turn the anxiety off (well, i figure 3 or 4 xanax would do it, but i need to be coherent in a few hours, so i shouldn't try that)

monday - graduation?

it looks as though monday's the day i'll be out of the intensive outpatient program at behavioral care south - my level of craziness has subsided to the point that they think i can handle just an hourlong group once a week now, with an occasional visit to the psychiatrist. i've got mixed feelings about this - i've been oh so ready to get out of it several times, and then some crisis pops up and there's no way i can leave...now i think i'm ready to go, even though there are some pretty major events heading my way in the coming weeks that may test me and my mental status.

assuming monday's the last day, i was in the programs (the Partial Hospitalization Program and the Intensive Outpatient Program) a total of 18 weeks and 1 day. pretty fucking crazy. these people have been a foster family to me, we've gone through a LOT of shit together, and they know a lot more about me than a lot of people do - it's going to be weird not having them around all the time.

dammit, ru...

ya know, RuPaul, it's awfully nice of you to come to visit us in Naptown and have a concert at Talbott Street and all, but couldn't you have scheduled it the week that i wasn't scheduled to be in the hospital with electrodes glued to my head and a video camera a few feet away from me?!?

i suppose if you wanna make it a really special birthday #32 for me, you could drop by the Neurology unit at Indiana University Hospital while you're in town - i'm sure that would probably induce some sort of brain activity that the docs would like to see!!!

the fortune in my fortune cookie...

"You will conquer obstacles to achieve success." - let's hope this one's right on the money...

underpants & tv shows...

i'm now the proud owner of a new pair of boxer shorts based on a fave tv show: American Chopper

today's horoscope....

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 23): You're starting to see how one choice led to another to land you exactly where you are. You'll probably scrutinize a relationship sideways, backward and upside down.

yeah, sure. story of my life. hell, they could run this horoscope every friggin' day and it'd be 100% accurate for me.

ativan - yummy!

i must say, ativan's a spiffy drug. prior to today, my most recent experience with an MRI machine left me this close I--I to a complete and total freakout. to avoid that, we had a dose of meds prior to today's tests, and i think they helped greatly. i haven't generally had severe claustrophobia in the past, but the MRI and similar machines that they like to cram the fat girls into and then leave the room while they turn on to make loud noises and shake seem to have awakened something in me, something that didn't like being awoken. so now we put it back to sleep with ativan.

got to the doc's office at 8:30, to get the vagus nerve stimulator turned off (seems the VNS and the MRI don't like each other too much) 9am was MRI time! The Interictal SPECT (Single-photon emission computed tomography - as if you didn't already know that!) was at 11am. and 2pm was the PET scan. the weeklong video EEG is scheduled for october and i don't yet have a date on when they're doing the neuropsych evaluation stuff. if all the tests give them the appropriate answers, they'll go in and carve out the fucked-up part of my brain that's causing my seizures (just the seizure-causing part - if they took all the fucked-up parts, there wouldn't be any left!!)

dunno when i'll get the results of tests they did today, but at least the tests themselves are done...

crumbling...

that seems to be the word that describes how things feel around me - feels as though everything around me's crumbling. and, silly me, i go to a friend, hoping for some friendship, and get told i'm "emotionally needy" - ummm, yeah. didn't seem to be such a big issue when the roles were reversed.

argh.

life sucks.

neurologically speaking...

saw the neurologist friday afternoon, a followup visit to find out any results from the overnight video EEG i had a couple of weeks ago...

the bad news: no major activity for them to see...

the good news: it looked a lot better than the one i had done 3 years ago...

*shrug*...

so, we're making a few medicine changes (argh! the frustrating thing is having to write all the shit out for each day cuz ya can't just start or stop a med, you have to slowly increase/decrease the dosages) and proceeding with the surgical evaluation - 3 tests next tuesday!

meanwhile my sleep patterns are fucked up and i need to talk to the shrink cuz the sonata's too damned expensive at $40 a prescription...drugs drugs drugs!!!

pretty obvious...

think it's pretty obvious by that last blog entry that lori's hit another bump in the road as far as the depression goes...entirely too much shit going on in my life that's bumming me out and i'm not handling it as well as i have been in the past few weeks...time for a meds change? dunno, might hafta see if i can get in to see the shrink earlier than my next scheduled appt. *sigh*

i'm sorry...

my very essence can be distilled down to those two words: i'm sorry. it's true in a variety of ways - apologetic, pathetic, melancholy, inadequate...

i'm sorry (in the apologetic way) to the people in my life, friends and family, that have had to put up with my crap - my plethora of problems, failings and shortcomings...wish i could just snap my fingers and make everything better or at least erase all the hurt/dissapointment/anger i've caused people, but it ain't gonna happen, and for that i'm truly sorry...

more on the other ways that i'm sorry later...

where's my rocking chair?

sheesh - tickets went on sale last weekend for an upcoming indianapolis appearance of R.E.M. (oct 20 at the murat) - i'd be tempted to go, 'cept for two things:

#1: the damned tickets are too expensive - the cheap seats are $49.50

#2: probably more importantly, it'd make me feel too damned old! just hearing they're in town sent me back in time - september '89, senior year of high school, market square arena, seeing 'em in concert with my boyfriend - yeah, THAT long ago...eeeeeeeeeeek!

productive saturday...

got lots done today - lots of miscellaneous errands accomplished...got the new bank card in the mail, so it was a trip to the bank to get the new PIN set up...then a trip to the library to pick up books/cds on hold...

then i harassed kat at work - my video eeg on thursday/friday has left residue on my head, and it's been itching like crazy...figured she'd have stuff at work (conveniently named "Lori's Hair Care") that might be a bit more capable than what's sitting in my bathroom - so i got some sort of goop put in my hair, sat under a dryer with a plastic bag on my head for a while, then rinsed it out and even managed to get my hair trimmed. most of the color's gone from my hair, i suspect kat will be wanting me to be her ginuea pig soon - she'd mentioned perhaps trying red sometime, we'll see about that one...

more to write about, but i'm whupped - time for some sleep...

one day is different than 24 hours...

when ya tell me to show up for a one day eeg, i figure i get there on thursday, i leave on thursday...well, i get there, and they let me know that i'm spending the night - whoo hoo! thinking i'd only be there till the evening, i didn't pack an away bag or anything. oh well, shit happens, we'll get over it. wish they'd have said a "24 hour eeg" tho - they've called them that previously, and i would've realized i'd be spending the night

of course i was majorly stressed before getting there, major traffic along the way, difficulty finding parking and so on and so forth. so we finally get to my room, they check my vitals - blood pressure's 196/89. not a big surprise actually, i could FEEL the stress coursing through my body, even though high blood pressure is one of the few disorders i actually DON'T have. so i sit around and wait for the EEG tech to show up with her glue gun and camera and 298,713 electrodes to attach to me and viola! get in bed and act like everything's normal!

mom stayed with me and of course the only time it seemed like anything strange happened was WHILE they were putting the electrodes on, before i was actually hooked up to the computer - a little deja vu episode, perhaps a slight complex partial seizure, but it wasn't recorded, of course. the doc will get all the info and see if i had seizure activity that i wasn't aware of (perhaps in my sleep) and we'll go from there...

kinda bummed i don't have the energy to make it to games night this evening, but i'm still wiped out and my hair is still all skanky from all the glue and crap they put in it and i just need to chill...

evil bastard cocksucking motherfuckers...

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stuck in my head...

ever get a song stuck in your head, for no apparent reason at all, and the only thing ya can do to attempt to remedy the situation is put it on the cd player and hit the repeat button until it just disappears from your consciousness? that's happening to me...

the song?

"Down To One" by Melissa Etheridge

*shrug* consciously, i'm not feeling particularly depressed or anything, but i think the subconscious is a bit lonely...

testing 1 2 3...

well, the tests for deciding whether or not i'm a surgical candidate won't start up till next month, but this thursday i'll be going in for a one day video EEG to see if they can discern anything about this last bout of seizure weirdness...i hope we can get some of this shit figured out - i really don't like feeling this way...

apparently, there's not a neuropsych doc covered by cigna within 100 miles, so i'll be going to the one at IU and paying 20% out of pocket - depends on who ya ask tho, one person says the tests'll cost $1000, another says $2400...oh well, it's only money, right?

trying to remember symptoms...

in trying to remember symptoms of things that have been happening with me since the last bout of seizures, here's the list thus far:

#1: having difficulty remembering things...

#2: ummmmm....lemme think about it, i know there were a few more to add to the list...

mid-weekend post...

not too much going on right now - kat and i did dinner at golden corral and wandered around meijer (jeez, the excitement of a saturday night!!) and now she's using my computer to check her email...

group on thursday was interesting - charles asked me if i'd thought about when i wanted to leave the intensive outpatient program. i was up front with him, it's been on my mind recently, and i honestly don't know what i think about it - part of me's thinks it's time to go, part of me doesn't - seems like the times before when i've thought it was time to go have been when things started to fall apart, and with the stuff i'm looking at coming up with testing for possible surgery and all, perhaps i should just stick with it a bit longer. or maybe not. hell, i don't know. in looking at what to do afterwards though, we talked about what group i may want to join up with - i'd previously been in the stress management group that met once a week, but i'm not sure if that's what i want to return to. charles suggested that perhaps a ptsd group might be a good fit - huh?!? post traumatic stress disorder?!? he explained how it may be relevant to me, how my seizures and my dealing with them could be seen as traumatic events and the ptsd group might be helpful - so i'm going to "audit" the group next week - still doing IOP, but i'll go to the PTSD group on tuesday and sit in the background and check it out, see if that's where i want to be. we'll give it a shot...

Kurt Vonnegut's got it figured out...

Kurt Vonnegut's figured out Dubya...check out this quote from a recent column (hell, read the whole column, it's great!):

"And do you know why I think he is so pissed off at Arabs? They invented algebra. Arabs also invented the numbers we use, including a symbol for nothing, which nobody else had ever had before. You think Arabs are dumb? Try doing long division with Roman numerals.

We're spreading democracy, are we? Same way European explorers brought Christianity to the Indians, what we now call "Native Americans.""

my Yiddish lesson for the day...

Holly emailed me and told me that my description of not being quite back to normal is ongepotchket in Yiddish...hmmm...ongepotchket...a google search reveals the common definition to be "Messed up, slapped together without form, excessively and unesthetically decorated" - that's not quite the way i'm feeling, but i suppose it somewhat gets the message across...

this weekend flew by...

perhaps it's that misperception of time thing i'm still dealing with since those last few seizures, but this weekend seemed to go a LOT faster than usual...

hung out with kat & jake friday night and saturday, played games and watched movies (both of em were amazed i hadn't seen Rat Race - funny movie)

sheesh, i can't believe i start week #13 of group on monday morning - better get to bed...

Friday the 13th...

good thing i'm not terribly superstitious - it'll really SUCK if today goes even worse than the rest of this week has simply because it's friday the 13th...

i'm still not back to "normal" - the lori standard of normal, that is...is it possible to be post-ictal for a whole week?!? not sure, but that's what it feels like...it's as if i'm in that dense fog that surrounds me after a seizure - the fog that usually lasts a couple of hours has gone been going on for days now...

meanwhile i'm having to deal with doctor's offices and insurance companies and all sorts of fucked up situations while my head isn't quite screwed on right - i KNOW i should be having an EEG done, cuz it's obvious to me that there's something not quite right goin on, but there seems to be some disagreement over who and where to do it, et cetera, et cetera...ARGH

whole lotta shakin'

...after tuesday's seizure, more weirdness abounded - smaller seizures on wednesday and thursday...saw the neurologist today, we're switching meds and going in for more tests - fun fun fun!!!

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whole lotta shakin goin on...

yup, had a seizure early tuesday morning (around 3am), then had some more weirdness happen during the day tuesday - fun fun fun. not sure how this'll effect the testing/surgery evaluation - damn, i shoulda just gone right to the hospital and got hooked up to an EEG. it's possible that the birth control pills i take for PCOS are interfering with the lamictal that dr. mohan's prescribed - i'd been off of them for a few months cuz my rx ran out and just recently started em back up again - so i need to give the gyn a call. also need to talk to the shrink about getting a better pill to help me sleep - the sonata is helping me GET to sleep, but i'm still waking up numerous times throughout the night...

ugh, it's all so frustrating. and while the seizure itself wasn't that bad, the aftereffects seem to be hanging around a lot more than usual - still feeling kinda squirrelly.

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information on food stamps in indiana...

seems i was given a bit of misinformation when told about the food stamps program in indiana, so here's a bit of a clarification for those that may be interested...

from the Hoosier Works Card FAQ:


not everybody gets their food stamp benefits on the first of the month - just so happens that i do cuz my last name starts with a B:

Food Stamp benefits will be available on one of the first five days of the month, according to the first letter of your last name:

A - B 1st
C - D 2nd
E - G 3rd
H - I 4th
J - L 5th
M - N 6th
O - R 7th
S 8th
T - V 9th
W - Z 10th

All benefits will be available at 8:00 a.m. Central Time on the benefit date.

waitaminute - it says they're available in the 1st 5 days of the month, but then lists 10 days? not a clue what that means, but that's what i copy/pasted from the link - i just hope your last name starts with a letter between A and L, cuz if you're an M through Z, i dunno what to tell ya...



and apparently the balance can roll over, tho i was told it would not and to spend the amount i had before the end of the month:

Q: What if I only receive a small amount of food stamp benefits; can I let the amount increase over a few months before I use them?
A: Yes. You may let them accumulate. Food stamp benefits will be available for 365 days from issuance



To check the balance on your card 24/7, call toll free at 1-877-768-5098


i think those are the major questions people have once they get the card...there's my public service announcement for today. *8-)

wow - a post that ISN'T about depression!!

latest book i've read: Eats, shoots & leaves : the zero tolerance approach to punctuation - yes, i suppose i'm exposing my extreme nerdity, but this book was great! i know - ya hafta be quite the loser to deliberately read a book about punctuation FOR FUN, but oh well - beats reading all these self-help books i've been recommended to read in therapy...

anyhoo - Eats, shoots & leaves - definitely recommended!

granted, the author would dislike this blog for the heavy use of ellipses and lack of capital letters, but oh well, it's my blog... *8-P

argh...

it appears that the alternator's gone out on my vehicle - friggin' wonderful - i have less than forty dollars to my name and now the car's going to shit...

happy happy joy joy

random scary website post...

i won't post the scary pic here, but click on the text below to see the dude with the world's record for ear hair!

Radhakant Bajpai of Naya Ganj, Uttar Pradesh, India, has hair sprouting from the centre of his outer ears (middle of the pinna) that measures an incredible 13.2 cm (5.19 in) at its longest point. The length of the 50-year-old's pinna pelt was confirmed by medical examiner Dr. R P Gupta.

"Making it to Guinness World Records is indeed a special occasion for me and my family," said Radhakant. "God has been very kind to me."

not much to report...

same ol' same ol' - still doing the therapy thang, trying to claw my way outta this crazy hole that i seem to have dug for myself...

blah blah blah...

I adopted a cute lil' cow fetus from Fetusmart! Hooray fetus!

it ain't brain surgery...

...but i suppose that could end up happening after my consultation at IU med center this morning.  gonna talk about the possibility of a temporal lobectomy to put a stop to my seizures.  took a couple months to get this appointment, which comes in the midst of my mental freak-out, so if they find i am a good candidate (my neurologist thinks i may be, except for the fact i'm diabetic and that may make healing more difficult) i may have to put things on the back-burner for a while. 

disability/ssi interview...

i'm currently on the phone doing an interview for social security disability and ssi -
approximately 832,769 questions to answer...

so, anyhoo...

the call lasted 1 hour, 04 minutes and 49 seconds - i think my ear's going to fall off, it's been numb for some time now - hmm, wonder if i can get disability for that...

so, they're gonna send me a bunch of medical releases et al, then i should hear something in 4 months...

*cue jeopardy music*

doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo...

the terminal

just went and saw the terminal with one of my cohorts in therapy - an okay movie i guess, i don't think it was quite as wonderful as roger ebert's review makes it out to be, but it was still good...

i'll have to put my ass-kicking shoes on monday to kick the asses of the several other people that said they were joining us for the movie...grrr....

friday evening...

dinner at the Butt Plug Chandelier Buffett with my mom and bro, and a pleasant family discussion about incest...

could life be any more surreal?

further into the crazy hole...

after telling group on tuesday of my deep dark thoughts, they decided that the half day program wasn't quite doing it, so i'm back on the full-time schedule. mixed feelings about that, i suppose, but we'll see what happens...

meanwhile, the shrink's added prozac to my long list of drugs...we'll see what happens there...

lah de dah...

they really DO exist...

i'd seen them on the internet, but wasn't sure if it was a joke website or not...kat and i saw a set of these on an old red pickup truck today...

TotalFark is worth the money...

there's one website i actually pay money for - fark.com's pay site, TotalFark. comments in unposted links made by other TotalFarkers are comedy gold. some of the articles that don't get put on the main Fark page are also rather amusing...

a recent TotalFarker post (with the Survey tag) asks: TFer's ladyfriend claims that since women don't have prostates, it is not possible for them derive physical pleasure from backdoor lovin'. Is this true? Have all those movies been lying to us?

i think my favorite euphemism was: "Hitting it in the turd chopper" - yup, them TotalFarkers have quite a way with words...

dunno about the accuracy of this post, but it does make one wonder:

Related to the initial post, the anus and the mouth are analogues of one another, and have the same number of nerve endings. So, however pleasurable kissing is for you, is about how pleasurable anal stimultion is.

Also, in regards to the assumption that women have no prostate: this is techincally true. But, every organ in one gender's body has an anologue in the other in some form or another. All the cells that make up the organs that differentiate us are derived from the same gender-neutral embryonic stem cells. It's those washes of hormones while we're in the womb that differentiate us into one or the other gender (or get us caught in between and make a hermaphrodite).

From this site called "All About My Vagina": http://www.myvag.net/gspot/

I found this quote:
"When I first learned that the G-spot in females developed from the same embryonic tissue that would turn into the prostate in males, I was really intrigued. Embryonic stem tissue and analogous organs fascinated me for a few years. But I'm kind of over it. Maybe I'm just used to the idea that we're all built from versions of the same tissues."

/...And knowing's half the battle!

AT&T = American Telephone & Telegraph

funny link to a guy calling AT&T to get a telegraph installed...

bleargh...

pretty much sums up my mood right now.

irritating clichés...

one of those phrases that just gets under my skin is oft heard out of a weathercaster's mouth: "not a cloud in the sky" - that's supposed to be a good thing?!? sounds pretty fucking boring to me.

"not a cloud in the sky" - just one color, usually blue. i'll take some clouds, thanks...yeah yeah yeah, i know - clouds bring rain, yatta yatta yatta, but hey, a little variety every once in a while is a good thing...



think i may have weirded mom out a bit on our trip to costco this afternoon - i was just busy cloudwatching...okay, she has a right to get a bit freaky when i start gazing upward and just staring off into space, since usually that means i'll be convulsing at any given moment, but today i was just watching clouds as they passed by us and we passed by them...

some of the things i saw in the clouds this afternoon:

a mother cradling a child (everyone together now - awwwww...)

a warthog

a backwards question mark

a musical note - hell, i forget what it's called...
(aha - google sends me to a page that reaveals to me that it's a sixteenth note!)

a rubber ducky

Massachusetts

and finally, what has to be the weirdest and most unexpected vision:
joe kernan's eyebrows

(damn, i wish i'd had my camera with me then - you'd see 'em too!! the governor of indiana's damned eyebrows were in the clouds!!!)

IOP...

that's the acronym for Intensive Outpatient Program - a half-day version of the Partial Hospitalization Program...same people, i just leave at noon instead of staying till 3. today was the 3rd day of IOP for me, slowly getting me ready to leave the program and go back to either one-on-one therapy or finding a weekly group (perhaps returning to the Stress Management group that sent me to PHP in the first place)...

leslie led a portion of the morning's session, and i discussed a few of the things floating around in my head...i might have to go elsewhere for a discussion of sm, since she thinks that relationships that involve it are inherently dysfunctional and most (if not all) of the group couldn't relate to the things i was saying...she also said that being submissive was not a good thing. hrmmm...

fina-fuckin-ly!

yeah, it took about 2 hours, but my emailbox is now devoid of new/unread mail messages. between being in a funk and spending a lot of time at kat's, i've not spent much time online. i'm sure some of it has to do with my depression as well - i generally stay on top of things as far as email and snail mail and don't let it get too out of hand...

now i just need to step away from the computer awhile and then come back and REPLY to the tens of messages i need to address...

review: last thursday & friday in the looney bin...

so, they tell us while we're in the PHP (partial hospitalization program) that we'll no longer be seeing our regular psychiatrist or therapist, there are specific therapists overseeing us daily, and one psychiatrist that will be seeing us weekly for updates and medication adjustments. problem is, there are too many patients for this to actually happen - part of the reason for that is that the doc isn't there all the time, she only has a few hours scheduled to see us on Mondays and Thursdays.

so, thursday was my appointment with dr. mohan, my neurologist - his office is at community hospital on the east side of town. the klonopin that the shrink has given me takes care of my anxiety and panic attacks, but on the down side, it knocks my ass out. so, not wanting to fall asleep on my way to the doc's office, i didn't take my morning dose of klonopin. it became painfully obvious that the klonopin works for the anxiety - i was jittery and anxious and just felt like shit. dr. mohan says everything looks alright (my blood pressure was 126/86 - pretty close to normal for me, a little high but nothing too bad) and sends me on my way - i go back to therapy to finish off the day and meet with the shrink to talk about adjusting and/or changing the meds again. well, too bad lori, she doesn't have any time for ya. WHAT?!?!? i'm freaking out here and she can't see me? i have to be like this until at least monday, if not later?!?!?!? leslie tells me that she'll see if she can get me squeezed in with the doc somehow - nope, not gonna happen. so then i ask what the hell to do because i'm going fucking crazy with these meds. well, i can wait to see if i can see another doc on friday, or call my family doc, or go to the emergency room. what the fuck kind of options are those?!? an er doc that's never seen me's gonna think i'm shopping for drugs, i'm sure. so, i go to dr. english's office (she's so fucking wonderful - i have the best doctor in the world!!!) and apologize profusely for not having an appointment but explain that the looney bin told me to either see her or go to the emergency room and could she PLEASE just see me for a few minutes. i'm sure that my bursting into tears made it obvious that i REALLY needed to see her. they tell me they'll take care of me and get me in as soon as possible. a few minutes later, i'm in the exam room - nurse takes my blood pressure - 168/98 - excuse me?!? my 3 hours in mental health care has caused my blood pressure to jump more than 40 points?!?!?!?!? yup, definite sign that i'm a bit stressed out. so i tell dr. e that i'm on the klonopin, 1/2 a tab in the morning, 1 at night, that previously i'd been taking 2 and that REALLY zonked me out, but that just 1 didn't do the job. told her that the xanax i'd taken previously seemed to work, but that it just seemed to wear off after a while. she tells me there's a xanax xr out there - extended release, just take one a day. gives me a card to take to the pharmacy for a free weeks' supply - that'll hold me over till the shrink can see me. dunno if the first one i took was just a placebo effect thang or not, but i did calm down shortly after taking it, and the past few days have been much more stable, so we'll see...

i was really ready to just say FUCK Y'ALL to the whole program at Behavioral Care South because of this and some other unfortunate events, but i made myself go back on friday. thankfully charles was leading group that day and calmed me down a bit and said that i actually handled things well. it's just so frustrating to be in this pit of depression, desperately trying to claw myself out, while at the same time dealing with insurance requirements and unkept appointments and misinformation and on and on and on....

mandatory post from The Pillsbury Dough Dyke...

this thread on fark cracked me up!

Replace a word in a famous quote with the word "cookie." "For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten cookie..."

some personal favorites:

"Those who would trade liberty for cookies deserve neither."
-Benjamin Franklin

"I believe a marriage is between a man and a cookie."
-George W. Bush

"The cookies are coming the cookies are coming!"
-Paul Revere

"Go ahead, punk, make my cookie."
-Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry

"That's one small step for man, one giant cookie for mankind."
-Neil Armstrong

lalalalala...

yesterday was certainly interesting - left group early cuz the klonopin was kicking my ass, went home and slept, then went over to kat's...had to give her her bday presents early before she went out and bought em (stuff she needs for the new apt - a microwave and teakettle - woo hoo!)...fixed her a birthday dinner (her pick - steak, corn on the cob, shells & cheese)...then john came over, helped assemble some of her furniture, and then we all had a few cocktails...and then i had a few more - can't remember the last time i was that drunk. more interesting things occurred, but i'll refrain from discussing those here...*8-)

killed the website...

it was about a year ago that i reserved seizureopportunities.com as the domain for my website - the intention being to provide lots of info on the Vagus Nerve Stimulator and my interactions with it. alas, my lack of html skills combined with my lack of patience and time meant that nothing other than a front page ever got done with it. got a notice that the domain was up for renewal and have decided to give it up - paying the $6.95/mo just to keep the front page up and running isn't a luxury i can afford these days...

the weekend...

...is going alrighty, i suppose. tons of laundry done yesterday, a few errands run, yadda yadda yadda...

"dad" called yesterday - strangest conversation i've had with him, i think...he asked how i was doing, and i fessed up - "i'm in a Partial Hospitalization Program and am getting help for depression and anxiety"...hadn't mentioned that when he called a couple of weeks ago (sheesh, can't believe i've been in PHP for 3 weeks now!)...the part where it gets really weird is when he asked "what can i do?" - huh? what? it's been 20 years or so since you've acted like a father and now you're gonna give it a try?!? told him about not having money to pay my bills, he said he'd see what he could manage and send it my way. i'm not holding my breath waiting for that check, but i guess it could happen. then he asked if i wanted to come out and see him - i'd been a bit irked that several months ago he had told me about having matt & paige (my half siblings) come out to see him this summer, but a similar offer wasn't made to me or adam, so to hear that from him was a bit strange...he just didn't sound like the same ol' asshole...hell, maybe he feels guilty...*shrug* is he just trying to rack up some points before father's day? i mentioned that to mom and she said that it's sad that that's the first thing i think of when trying to figure out his intentions, but that it's understandable...people can change, i suppose, but based on his previous history, i'm not holding my breath...

being poor sucks...

i've begun the process of applying for disability medicaid and social security disability - it's depressing as hell. my situation's so bleak that they're getting me on the food stamps program beginning next week. i suppose that'll help a bit, but the medicaid is what's really needed - paying the cobra premiums on my health insurance has killed me - almost $400 a month just to maintain my health insurance. but if i didn't do that, i'd REALLY be screwed...add to that about $200 a month minimum for prescriptions and doctor copays and it's obvious that it's hard to get by on $0 income.

i hate asking for help, i really do - i'm the one supposed to be out there helping others.

oh well, now i'm off to the endocrinologist's office...

*yawn*

not sure what's going on, if it's a side effect of the Klonopin or stress or what, but i'm wide awake right now, been that way since 5:30am - not good when i didn't get to sleep till midnight. another thing that makes me wonder if it's the drugs is that i've been really forgetful since we upped the dose - i sit down to the computer and forget what i was going to do, or go out to the car to get something and forget what it was i wanted. i've also managed to lose mom's cell phone - she's not as freaked about it as i am.

dinnertime...

Cheeseburger Macaroni Hamburger Helper is food of the gods!!!

*8-)

dunno...

don't know if it's the new cocktail of drugs or all the psycho stuff i'm going through (perhaps a combo of both?), but i seem to be having lots more vivid dreams lately, and have been able to remember more of them...

shouldn't have told adam about the dream i had of him dying - he's flying to LA this weekend...now he doesn't wanna get on the plane.

dammit, i was gonna blog about the dream i just awoke from, now i can't remember what the hell it was about...it's far too easy to say "woah, there's no way i'll forget that one" and then ten minutes later, it's gone...suppose i'll keep my journal (the one in book form, since i don't have a notebook PC) by the bed...

the weekend...

...consisted mainly of helping kat move into her new apartment - couldn't be as helpful as i wanted, since my wrist is still pretty damned weak (and occasionally painful) but we got all the shit moved eventually...makes me realize how damned lucky i was to have josh and steve help me move back in to mom's place - moving sucks.

on sunday, mom and i met up with joanie to get tips on applying for social security disability and such...ugh. the whole process is just so freaking overwhelming - i think even sane people would go crazy doing this shit...

Partial - Day Ten...

well, Week 3 of life in the looney bin started out with a bang...lots of conflict going on, lots of people in crisis...amazing how physically and emotionally draining it can be to sit around and talk for six hours...

lyrics of the day...

i'm not making a joke
you know me i take everything so seriously
if we wait for the time
till all souls get it right
then at least i know there'll be
no nuclear annihilation in my lifetime
i'm still not right
~"Galileo", Indigo Girls

just cuz i always wanted a dog named kittykitty...

Thought For The Day:

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for one night.

Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

can't think of a title...

damn, i deliberately decide to blog and now i can't think of anything...lalalalala

Partial - Day Nine...

wrapped up Week #2 of life in the Partial Looney Bin today! i tell ya, my fellow Looneys give me lots of things to think about, as do the therapists on staff...

Partial - Day Eight...

you know, it's really weird - it's not even been two weeks in therapy and i feel this closeness, this connection with some of the people there. no, not a "leave and start hanging out with these people" sort of thing, but a sense of respectful friendship.

yeah, i guess six hours a day 5 days a week (except Memorial day made it 4 days this week) is pretty intense, but i haven't seen all of them all the time, some are only half-day people, some haven't shown up for a day or two...

it's just strange to have met these people on May 24, and here on June 3 i've felt more human, more like other people, less alone because of the various ways i've connected and related with them.

i figured i'd be the total freak, the token queer - yet in my talking about various issues, even people that don't know where i'm coming from can chime in with some very helpful ideas, new ways of thinking.

it's cool, and while i know i've still got a long way to go, i think this will prove to be a very helpful program...

two steps forward, one step back...

that's what scott said therapy would be like at times, and that's how it seems now - a big light bulb goes on over my head about something and then a short time afterwards someone saying a single thing to me sets off the tears...some progress made, lots more to go...

they need to get that Magic Pill invented, dammit. you know, the one that cures everything...

Memorial Day 2004...

well, i suppose i shouldn't be so bummed about not going to Lexington - we had some horrible weather yesterday and it woulda really sucked to be out driving in it. so instead i went over to kat's and hung out, knowing she's not real fond of storms. luckily she slept through the worst of it.

hopefully mom'll get a hold of the pool people this week and we can get that baby up and running ASAP!

ARGHHHHHHHHH!

men suck!

cuz of clara's husband, we're not meeting up in lexington this weekend - road trip cancelled!!! *8-( *8-(

musical meltdown...

ever have an urge to hear a certain song or two, but for the life of ya you can't find the CD and it's not on kazaa or anywhere you've looked? ugh, so friggin frustrating! happened to me last week, with THREE cd's - a desperate need to hear Astronauts & Heretics by Thomas Dolby (the whole album) as well as Welcome To My Dream by MC 500 Ft Jesus (most of that album) and a few tracks by Kitchens of Distinction...all 90's stuff...after not being able to find my discs and unable to get tracks i wanted online, i figured it was worth the price (of my ever-decreasing sanity) to hit Best Buy and buy 'em - not a single one was available. ARGH!!!!!!!!!

thank Whoever that there's ebay - i got dolby and jesus discs in the mail this week, and they've soothed me a bit...now that i've re-purchased them, i'm sure the ones i originally bought will turn up - but that's okay, they're that good.

guess my musical tastes haven't changed much in the last 10-15 years...

L	Luscious
O	Odd
R	Refined
I	Insane

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anniversaries...

memorial day weekend, 1988 - it was sixteen years ago this weekend that i was in the hospital, in intensive care with meningitis and encephalitis...

sixteen years...meaning now i've lived with my seizures longer than i've lived without them...

i must say, all this introspection with therapy and such makes me wonder - if i'd had that magic wand and *POOF*, made the seizures disappear, how would i be different as a person? better? worse? stronger? a bigger asshole? tough call...

i suppose i should be practicing mindfulness and not dwell on the past so much, yet at the same time, there are some big issues looming in my mind that i need to discuss in group next week - get stuff out on the table instead of being locked up in my brain...

my warning label...

> WARNING

loribindy is radioactive. Wear protective clothing at all times.

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Partial - Day Five...

made it through Week #1 of the Partial Hospitalization Program (finally! the whole title! not just Partial or PHP, but an explanation of what all the letters stand for!)

this codependency book has me thinking about a lot of things - a lot of relationships with people (past and present) and how they've affected me and how i've affected them...lots to ponder...perhaps next week will consist of a major breakthrough (rather than breakdown) and the light bulb will go on over my head...

*yawn*

ugh, this getting up to be at group by 9am shit is killing me. all throughout my unemployment, i've been on a modified version of my previous work schedule - not quite a night shift, but closer to that than being a morning person. too bad they don't have a 9pm-3am class...

in addition to playing havoc on my sleep schedule, i'm having difficulty adjusting my meds to this new schedule - my blood sugar keeps dropping in the afternoons. hell, who knows, when i see the endocrinologist the week after next, maybe she'll suggest we change the diabetes meds...

Partial - Day Three...

well, day three means there was obviously a day two, right? yeah. day two was much better - i actually got to talk and stood up (yes, ME, assertive!!!) and explained my frustrations at not knowing what the hell all the code words and such meant (i'm a Beaver, BTW) and so we got things out in the open - charles thanked me for "coming out of the closet"...it was then that i said "oh yeah, by the way, i'm a lesbian" - it made coming out rather easy, i wasn't sure how it'd go since it seems like most of the group is or has been married to members of the opposite sex. hell, i might be the only queer there, not quite sure yet.

anyhoo, although i'm in the midst of three books, i got #4 and am now about a third of the way through it - Codependent no more : how to stop controlling others and start caring for yourself. guess we can add another diagnosis to the list - lori's got some codependency issues.

more to talk about later...

Partial - Day One...

Partial - now, i dunno exactly why they do this shit, but that's they call it. i suppose it's a politically correct condensation of the term "partially fucking insane" - i'm now spending 6 hours a day in therapy trying to get out of this depression...

thus far? day 1 made it worse. it's weird enough to enter a group therapy room with 11 strangers and be the only one that hasn't a clue what's going on. then to have all these code words and inside jokes flying about makes ya feel even more left out. then to not even have a chance to say more than two sentences about myself and the fact that i desperately want nothing more than to kill myself really sucks.

what did i get out of today? well, there are other people out there that are depressed. this, i already knew.

i'm thinking i'll give it one more try tomorrow - maybe it was just one of those weird flukes that meant i didn't get a chance to talk - but i certainly didn't get a good feeling in those initial six hours...

one friggin point...

we lost by one friggin point tonight - "we" being the Fever, at my 2nd ever attended Fever game (and the 2nd attended in the past 3 days!) one minute left and the score was tied, and the Mystics ended up winning by one point...it was a nailbiter for sure...

kim's a sweetie - i offered to pay her for my ticket, but she said it was on her...we were right behind the Mystics bench...those season ticket thangs are cool...someday i'll have the money for that sort of thing...

current reads from the library...

i'm in the midst of reading three books from the library right now...

The book on Bush : how George W. (mis)leads America - Eric Alterman - it's taking me FOREVER to read this book...i'm about halfway through it, but it just gets too depressing reading about how Dubya's fucked up this country, so i put it down for a while...i think i've renewed it through the website about three times now...

Nam June Paik : video time, video space - Nam June Paik - during a late night trip to meijer, kat and i stumbled across some art prints, which got us talking about favorite artists. i told her about Paik, but any description i could give wouldn't give his art justice...hell, the book doesn't do his sculptures justice, but it'll give her an idea of the weird sort of stuff i like. i'm also re-reading the book in the hopes of getting re-energized and perhaps a bit artistically motivated - maybe that'll help with the job search...

Seizure free : from epilepsy to brain surgery, I survived, and you can, too! - Leanne Chilton - interesting read, so far, tho i must say i'm annoyed at the little errors and such. Chilton needs a better editor. it's good to have a book that's not all bogged down in clinical terms and such, but typographical and other errors just irk me...

busy busy weekend...

my cousin joanie's daughter ashley graduated from high school last night, so we attended the open house this afternoon - can't believe the little baby that i babysat as a teenager is headed to IU in the fall...

afterwards i headed over to kat's to try and help her get stuff settled with the new place she's supposed to be moving into - that ain't happening, it's a shithole, nothing like the model they showed us. back to square one, finding her a new place to live ASAP...moving is such a pain in the ass...

kat yelled and screamed so much at the game last night that she's lost most of her voice...so we went to the abbey tonight for some hot tea to soothe her throat...jacob quickly lost interest with the place once he was done with his mocha mousse cake, but i suppose we should've expected that - the scene's a bit too drab for an 11 year old...

if it weren't enough that i attended my first Fever game on friday, i'll be attending another one tomorrow!! kim said she had an extra ticket, so we're meeting for dinner beforehand and then it's off to the game...pretty cool...once i win the lottery, i'll have to get season tickets or something...

a festive evening...

kat and i took her son jacob to the home opener for the Indiana Fever - first game i've attended...pretty damned cool, i'll definitely hafta go again...saw a lot of familiar faces in the crowd, but couldn't put names to them - i think i need the shirt i saw on a chick at the softball game i attended a couple weeks ago - it read "That's okay - I don't remember your name either"...certainly a must for my brain damaged self...

afterwards, it was off to Ritter's for frozen custard - yummy. damn, now i can't seem to locate my meter for checking my blood sugar. darn. ;-)

"Every time you masturbate... God kills a kitten"

Small, brown kitten
Look at it, take a
deep look into this poor things eyes. Every
time you masturbate you kill one of him, or
her. God knows what it is, but it's gonna be
dead soon, because of you. You sick, sick boy
(or girl).


Every time you masturbate... which kitten does god kill?
brought to you by Quizilla

Shrek 2...

kat and i did dinner and a movie tonight - both of us unsure of what to eat or what to go see...we did dinner at Uno

after dinner, we made a quick pit stop into Target - when we got out of the car we saw a really spiffy rainbow - not drop-dead gorgeous or anything, but still cool. rainbows rock...

then we went and saw Shrek 2 - good movie, definitely gonna hafta check it out again when it comes out on DVD because i suspect we missed a lot of inside jokes. the scene where Antonio Banderas (aka Puss In Boots) licks himself is classic, tho i think Kat was a bit jealous...(not cuz she can't lick herself, but cuz she'd rather be the one licking Antonio - well, at least that's what i think) *8-)

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain - Emily Dickinson

(can't really explain it, but this has always been a favorite poem of mine...)

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading--treading--till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through--

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum--
Kept beating--beating--till I thought
My Mind was going numb--

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space--began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here--

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down--
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing--then--

-- Emily Dickinson

Bloomington...

Kat and i made a little road trip to Bloomington today...it was really nice until *WHAM!* i got hit by a wave of depression on the ride home. being unemployed really sucks. i feel completely and utterly useless.

the idea that'll make me a bazillionaire...

well, the initial prototypes of my magic wand that'll make everything happy have not quite worked as planned, so i suppose i'll have to get working on the back-up idea...

The Magic Remote Control will allow you to rewind and replay the spiffy parts of your life, as well as fast-forward through the really sucky ones. Want everything to just chill for a while? Hit the pause button, and hit it again when you're ready to resume life on this crazy-ass merry-go-round called life.

i think we could all use something like that...

i've been shot...

...but it's just a minor flesh wound, really...

the hand surgeon gave me a cortisone shot today...hafta keep up with the physical therapy - my not going last week made that abundantly clear...my handwriting is becoming more and more atrocious and my wrist is very weak...

nice weekend...

like a weekend even makes a fucking difference to my unemployed ass. *8-) alas, i do seem to see more people and do more things on the weekends...

saturday we went to my aunt sherry's house - to celebrate birthdays - my mom's, and my cousin's daughter's...jessica just turned 11 and went apeshit over anything and everything PINK...all her presents were either pink, a book, or Hillary Duff related!!!!!!! omigod!!!! there aren't enough exclamation points to adequately describe the excitement of preteen girls!!!!

the good thing about visiting aunt sherry - she's got all the grandbabies in the family...my branch of the family tree being a bit barren, we get to go over there and see my cousins and all their babies...then they get tired and cranky and we get to go home. *8-)

here i am with jessica's two sisters, Alanis and Alivia:


went to Kat's saturday night, we watched Priscilla - i think the Abba turd really freaked her out. *8-) eeek, i can't believe that movie's TEN years old!!

then today it was back to Kat's - this time with mom...the two finally met, now they know they aren't each figments of my imagination. kat worked her stylist magic on my momma - here's the before/after pics to prove it:



mom's just thrilled - it took her long enough to finally take the plunge and get her hair colored...i'm glad she likes the results.

suppose i should get some sleep - off to the hand doc tomorrow!

not Bosnia - Croatia...

adam's gig this weekend isn't Bosnia - this time he's in Croatia...Opatija, to be specific...

clouds...

this afternoon, between various errands, i was struck by the beauty of a rainstorm. no, not struck by lightning or anything like that...

the sky was a very light shade of grey, with these big white fluffy clouds up high...below them, these dark charcoal colored wisps of clouds - the dark clouds were scurrying across the sky, as if they were rushing off to an appointment, or perhaps they were hiding from the rainstorm to come. soon, everything turned to gray and the rain began pounding onto my car, sheets of rain - drip drip drip...

amazing how something so simple can get stuck in your mind - the simple beauty of it all was just...hell, i don't even have the right word for it. it just was...

bumper stickers...

saw one on a truck the other day that left me flabbergasted and cracked me up at the same time...

MY OTHER RIDE
IS YOUR MOM

VNS Update - it ain't brain surgery...

...so maybe i oughta just DO the brain surgery...

appointment with the neurologist today - upping the meds a bit, he doesn't wanna change the VNS settings - guess my coughing fit in the office the last time he tried really freaked him out...

in july, i'm meeting up with Dr. Vicenta Salanova to discuss a temporal lobectomy.

at first, the idea of brain surgery totally FREAKED me out. uh-uh, no how, no way. the VNS surgery wasn't nearly as scary - stick a battery in my chest, wrap a wire around a nerve in my neck. it ain't brain surgery, even tho it really was.

dr. mohan says the success rate for temporal lobectomy is 85-90% - i think those are really good odds, definitely worth looking into the option...willing to take the chance that things could get worse or not change in exchange for an 85-90% chance that my seizures will end? sounds like good odds to me...

the thing that scares the shit out of me? well, the part of the brain they're working with is around the language center, so if something does go wrong...eek, i don't wanna think about that. suffice it to say i'll need to get all my arrangements in order before the actual surgery were to happen.

dr. mohan says my diabetes makes me a less acceptable candidate because it may take longer to heal, but i've been doing really good at keeping my sugars in check and the endocrinologist was happy at my last visit...now i just need to get my stress, anxiety and depression in check - easy as pie! ;-)

speechless...

yeah, that's me - after last night, i'm at a loss for words...

thanks Kat! *8-)

*woof woof*

deb's a dog. a bad dog - in a good way.

spose that's not the sort of compliment to give a chick that buys yer dinner, but you know you're a dog!

'scuse me while i go work on a little assignment. ;-)

got rid of the winter coat...

yup, summer's definitely on it's way - shaved my legs today - woo hoo! *8-)

the fact that i don't keep the legs constantly shaved is NOT a political statement, or a requirement for my dykeness - guess i'm just a lazy ass. particularly in the wintertime.

smooth or hairy, don't matter to me...

but i did forget how good it feels to be hairless after several months' growth...*8-)

*rub rub rub*

men are assholes...

yeah, i think the title says it all - men are assholes...

inconsiderate self-centered obnoxious dickheads...

just my current opinion...ymmv.

deb...

just can't say enough about this woman - she's so spiffy! *8-) (well, except for that abandoning us and leaving to go live in nashville part, but we won't talk about that)...

rather than sitting home on friday night waiting for the phone to ring, i went and met up with her to catch lisa's softball game...i miss going to the games - i'll hafta do that more often...

so tuesday @ 5:30, we're meeting for dinner at yats - haven't been there before, but i've heard it's good stuff...

the more things change, the more they stay the same...

is that a quote from a specific person, or just some little ditty an anonymous person came up with to print on a t-shirt? hell if i know, but i'll be damned if it isn't the fucking truth.

the more things change, the more they stay the same...

unearthed my old journal today...it's one of the old-fashioned kind - made out of sheets of paper, they call them "books" - apparently that's what people used before blogs... ;-)

anyhoo, it's a blank book, with keith haring artwork on the cover...containing the gory details of my life spanning 3 nov 96 - 31 dec 99...and whaddaya know, a lot of the shit i wrote then is the same shit i'm dealing with now...depression, anxiety, job problems (granted, back then i actually HAD a job - now i'm freaking cuz i don't have one), and on and on and on...granted, there are things i'm dealing with now that i didn't deal with then (and vice versa) but it's amazing how similar things are...maybe it isn't amazing, maybe i'm just in a huge fucking RUT...

*shrug*

googling people...

it's kinda weird when ya google a doc to get more info on their professional life and then ya find out personal stuff about them...for instance, apparently my new shrink is a pretty good ragtime piano player...

the new doc...

met the new shrink last night...trying to not get too excited, but my initial impression is very good - compared to the last 2 shrinks, he rocks!

i was worried initially because we seemed to get off on a rocky start - as we were going through my medical history, i told him that i had a Vagus Nerve Stimulator implanted and asked if he was familiar with it. it was then that he said "not everyone realizes this, but i am a medical doctor" - yeah buddy, i know a psychiatrist has an M.D. attached to his name. i apologized and told him that i did know that but that i've had to explain the VNS to many an M.D. and nurse in assorted ERs and doctor's offices. after that, things were cool.

i may be following in momma's footsteps with the sleep apnea thing - something i'll have to discuss with dr. mohan when i see him next week.

getting a fix...

that's what i did this evening - fed my shopping addiction. today was the last day of Coupon Mania at Kroger - they double coupons up to $1.00 and triple the $0.50's. a great time to make purchases to send off to assorted food banks and charities around town.

cart full o groceries: $299.88
final price after zapping my evil plus card and taking off coupons: $111.34
total savings: $188.54

i put the cold stuff away, now i'm gonna take a nap and sort out the rest of the stuff later...*yawn* bargain hunting can be so exhausting.

my wrist...

went to physical therapy today...i guess the doc telling me monday that i might need either a cortisone shot or surgery scared my wrist - the pain has lessened a great deal...so now the physical therapist says we're gonna move on to strengthening exercises - excitement galore. hopefully the pain will be gone before a week from next monday and we won't need that cortisone shot - last time i had one it seemed to make things WORSE before they got better.

a hellcat - that's me!

heh heh heh - at least that's what deb called me when i told her of all my exciting plans for today - go vote, and do laundry. woo hoo - party animal, that's me!!

there's been some interesting discussion on the gayindy list about the election - some democrat voters are talking about crossing over and voting republican, either for Miller or Daniels, depending on their strategy. some think having miller in november's election will help Kernan (since miller's nuttier than a fruitcake - and NOT the good kind of fruitcake, either!), while some think having daniels in the election is a hell of a lot better than miller. i thought seriously about it before voting, but if there was any possible chance that my one vote would mean eric miller ended up as governor, i'd just have to blow my freaking brains out.

this appears to be the election of "who's the least evil?" - i wouldn't call joe kernan evil, but he said he wouldn't run for re-election, and whaddaya know, he's running. and we won't even get started on the presidential race....

*twiddle twiddle twiddle*

insomnia sucks. hope the new doc gives me a good pill when i see him on thursday...

for no apparent reason...

a dancing banana!

ugh...

ugh...

that one grunt pretty much says it all...

today started out all fine and dandy - left kat's this morning (we watched Pirates of the Caribbean last nite - johnny depp WAS robbed of that oscar!) and went to the hand doctor appointment, then went home. after seeing how nice the weather was today, i figured i'd go to the cemetery today, although it's actually Wednesday that's the tenth anniversary of Chris Gonzales' death. so i gave Kat a personalized tour of Crown Hill...then we headed to the Abbey for some food (yay! i got the last piece of mocha mousse cake!!)...then it was off to Out Word Bound...a rather amusing thing happened there, but i'm gonna hold off from talking about it right now...

it was while driving Kat home that my head started hurting...and this wave of emotions just crashed over me...

right now, i just feel like crap. i'll sit here and tell myself it's cuz it's that time of the month, but it's probably more than that...there's soooo much going on in my head and it's really overworking that one remaining semi-functional brain cell that i have...

a ganglion cyst...

a ganglion cyst - that's what the hand surgeon thinks i may have now. we'll do a couple more weeks of physical therapy - if i'm still hurting in 2 weeks, we'll do a cortisone shot. if it still hurts after that, surgery may be necessary...dunno if i could get a 2fer and get the carpal tunnel stuff taken care of at the same time, guess we'll see if that time comes...

movies...

kat and i have watched a few movies over the last couple of nights...i went over to her place wednesday night, and we rented Johnny English and Wonderland...we watched Johnny English - silly movie, but provided a much-needed laugh.

tonight, we watched Wonderland - interesting story, but a bit confusing...i guess that's the way with true-crime dramas nowadays - if there's the slightest bit of mystery they have to jumble everything up and change a few facts around to avoid libel charges or other potential lawsuits. Val Kilmer's an interesting John Holmes, and Dylan McDermott was practically unrecognizable - very weird. (somewhat related in the true-crime drama vein, June 1 is the release date for Monster on DVD - i'm looking forward to that one - yet another movie where it's definitely not got all the facts right, but if you take it as a fictional account, it's a damned good movie)

tonight, Kat treated me to a showing of Secretary - it was AWESOME...might just have to buy the DVD for myself. James Spader is just so fucking awesome, that's all there is to it. not very often that you find a movie about sadomasochism with such depth.

dinner last night...

while the brother's over in Bosnia, i went to La Hacienda with his girlfriend...never ate there when i lived in irvington, but codi says she and adam go there a lot, cuz it's cheap. not bad food, either.

so, i suppose if adam and codi don't ever get married, codi won't ever be a sister-in-law...would that make her a sister-outlaw instead? *8-)