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...