Doctors and asshole video store managers

First, doctors…..

If my body is my temple, my temple mirrors one of those wigwam shit holes across the street.

I went to the doctor today. I went for a few reasons…

1/ My doctor and therapist are going to be kinda working together over the “panic attack” issues.
2/ My left shoulder is fucked up and much to my dismay ignoring the pain, burning and clicking noises it has been providing me for a few years now isn’t a remedy.
3/ My tummy hurts.

I was in a car accident 5 or so years back that royally screwed up my left shoulder (some uninsured asshole decided it‘d be a good idea to drive his car up underneath the bed of my truck. It was in the middle of a sunny Sunday afternoon, I was stopped allowing a squirrel to cross the road, he was fucking with his stereo.) On and off since then it has given me problems. In the last year those “problems” have been nonstop. I’m not a fan of prescription painkillers so I’ve been eating OTC meds like candy for months. Which leads me to my tummy. Either I’ve completely blown my stomach up with stress or it’s the 6 to 8 Doan's, Advil, Tylenol, Aleve or whatever else I can get my hands on that I’ve been eating daily so I can make it through work and to help me sleep. My tummy hurts and I’m all acid refluxie so to combat that I’ve been drinking tummy stuff like water for over a week now.

Doc says to me today “We need to figure out if your stomach issues are stress related or if you’ve screwed yourself up with OTC’s. So here’s what we’re gonna do…” At this point in the story I’d like to stop and clarify that “So here’s what we’re gonna do” actually translates into “So here’s what I’m gonna make you do…”

We, (which really means me) are going to have the following done…

Protonix QD for the tummy
Klonopin BID for the freak outs
Left shoulder x-ray
Extensive blood work (which will in the process rule out H-pylori)
Physical therapy
And (I’ve saved the best for last) an Upper GI

Yay.

See, I went to the doctor 8 or 9 months back over my shoulder and neck hurting. I had 45 to 50% mobility. She gave me some steroids to reduce the swelling and referred me to physical therapy.

The upside was the steroids worked- my shoulder stopped hurting and I regained the mobility in my arm and neck for awhile. The downside was…my penis disappeared and I was left with a giant set of nuts. Okay so you didn’t think it was funny but I did…and that’s what matters.

Anyway, during that period of time I had decided to start going to counseling again. I had two choices. A/ spend $40 once a week getting my head straight or B/ spend $40 three times a week in physical therapy getting my shoulder straight. I chose the mental therapy. Now I’m going to be stuck doing both. Unless, that is, I want to end up having to have surgery on my shoulder or my guts because of all of the aspirin I take to make my shoulder stop hurting.

Second, asshole video store managers….

D went to the video store last night to rent a movie. Clerk says “You have an $84 dollar late fee.” D says, “Uh, no I don’t.” Clerk says “Yeah, it’s for 50 First Dates, you never returned it.” D says “That was months ago; my wife bought that movie for her dad. BOUGHT. As in PAID FOR. Not rented.” Clerk says “No, we rented that movie to you. We didn’t sell it.” I’m going to stop here (because this shit goes on for an hour) and cut to my part in the process.

D called me, told me what was going on and that the manager would be there at midnight if I wanted to deal with him. I was three shades past livid. Why? Because this is the third THIRD, time these assholes have SOLD me a movie, then turned around and said it was rented.

I went up there at midnight raging pissed but still actively seeking resolution. Resolution went out the window when the manager asshole tried to convince me in extremely broken English that I was trying to rip him off for 6 fucking dollars (the movie was for SALE for 6.99, the idiot clerk charged me .99 as a rental….hence the giant fucking late fee). I explained that this was the third time this had happened, I fully intended on contacting the B.B.B. and would not under any circumstances pay an $84 dollar late fee that I did not owe. I also told him that one of two things was going on; either he was a fucking thief (since this has happened three times now) or he had incompetent employees that can’t tell the difference between a sale and a rental. I explained that I got a card in the mail months ago saying the movie was 8 days late. I called the number on the card and told the guy I BOUGHT the movie. He said he’d take care of the account and make sure it reflected the purchase.

So what did this dumbass decide to do? He started to yell at me. I asked him once “Will you please lower your voice and quit yelling at me?“ he kept yelling. I then told him “Stop raising your voice with me, I will NOT be spoken to like that.” he kept yelling. I responded with “Do you really want to get in a yelling match with me? I can assure you right now that you won’t win.” he kept yelling. So…..I started screaming at him at the top of my fucking lungs. The store emptied, the employees freaked. I told him he could close my account, eat the motherfucking DVD and shove the fucking late fee up his ass. I also told him if I got a bill in the mail I was going to take it directly to my attorney.

I left the DVD on the counter and stormed out with him yelling at me that I was a thief and a liar. I told D what had transpired and how ashamed of myself I was for showing my ass. As soon as I got to the part where Dickhole called me a thief and liar, D didn’t say another word. He got in the car and went back up there. Dickhole didn’t yell at D, he didn’t call him a thief and he didn’t call him a liar. D has a few slight advantages over me- he doesn’t raise his voice (he stays creepy calm with an expressionless face), he stands 6’4” and weighs in at 225. I guess Dickhole figured it’d be a bad idea to piss off a guy that big and that creepy calm. An hour later D comes home, DVD in hand and says “I’ll deal with it from here on out.”

He was on the phone with someone over it today on the drive to my doctors appointment. I’m not sure what’s going on with it but I do know this: screw Dickhole!…I’m not paying that idiot a dime for an imaginary late fee! If I owe him anything, it’s 6 dollars because his stupid employee rang me up wrong. It would really be in Dickhole’s best interest to take the six fucking dollars because D has made it clear that he has no intention of letting this go.

It makes me ill at heart

(yes, this is going to be a long entry).

My family has owned our property for 50+ years. It is the same for most of the people on our side of the street. Our homes and cars are well kept, our lawns should be featured in Better Homes and Gardens. Our “side” of the neighborhood is beautiful.

Across the street is a different story. Twenty or so years ago most of the people sold their homes, died off or moved away. All of the properties on that side of the street were bought up by some sorry scumbag landlord. Since then it has exchanged scummy landlord hands dozens of times. With each exchange the property decreases in value, the inhabitants get nastier and nastier and yet the city does nothing- which in turn has decimated my property value. These shitty landlords keep the “homes” just barely above condemnation standards. I wouldn’t make wild rats reside in these HUD-like wigwam shit holes.

As I mentioned, the inhabitants of these condemnable rat nests are no better than their surroundings. These people have no standard of living; most of them are ex-felons that have no concept of cleanliness and are in general disgusting examples of humanity. Seriously, it’s like a third world country over there. They sit outside all night long, burn garbage (Yes, I’m serious), drink (off that monthly welfare check they collect), yell, blare music and beat the shit out of each other. Those of you who read my blog fairly regularly have already been introduced to one fucker in particular that lives over there. That fucker is a very important part to this story.

We learned a long time ago not to call the police when they‘re out there drinking, yelling and fighting. We‘ve been threatened that if we do call the police, our home will be burnt down, we’d be physically assaulted, our dogs shot or poisoned, our cars broken into etc. etc. etc. A few years ago one of the shitfuckers over there actually threatened to rape me if he caught me outside checking my mail because I’d made the mistake of calling the cops on him for beating his wife. Needless to say, we try to keep to ourselves (everyone on this side of the street does) unless a situation arises that absolutely warrants our involvement (like our intervention with the kitten). Oh, or when child services leaves a card on our mailbox because they are openly investigating the shitbags that live over there.

So. Late Friday night the fucker across the street was at it again. Now keep in mind, this is the same house of assholes that tried to kill Kaz and the same house of assholes investigated by child services. The loud music and hollering started around 11pm. At 1am D and I went out on the back patio to smoke (we don’t smoke in the house). The music was still blaring and this guy was still outside hollering…at nothing. He’s just standing in the street yelling “WOO-HOO!!!!” at the top of his lungs. D started to get really angry. He told me he was going to go over there and say something. I told him you can’t reason with a drunk, the guy will get tired sooner or later and shut up. I told him to leave it alone. 2am rolls around, D and I were finished watching (through the blaring radio across the street) the movie we rented and were ready to go to bed (we both had to work Saturday). The guy is still out there showing his ass and D wanted to call the police at this point. I convinced him to ignore it and go to bed. If the police were called the same thing would happen that happens every time the police are called. The music would be shut off until the police leave, ten minutes later they’d crank it back up (louder than before) and walk down the street yelling “Whoever called the fuckin’ law is gonna regret it”. Same thing. Every time.

Somewhere around 3:30am the music was turned off (or down to a reasonable level where I couldn‘t hear it word for word 100 yards away in my bedroom). All was quiet in the neighborhood. Temporarily. By 5:30am eight hundred cops, three detectives, and the county coroner were on the street roping it off. My first thought was one of two things probably happened: 1/ the fucker drank too much, passed out on his back and aspirated on vomit or, 2/ someone had finally gotten a gut full of the bullshit and shot him to shut him the fuck up. Whatever. I wish I had been right.

And here’s where it gets bad. Really bad. On my way to work later in the morning I stopped at the corner store to buy a soda. I asked the cashier if any cops had been in talking about a suicide or murder on my street. She said that the lady they just hired a few weeks earlier for the overnight shift- who also happens to live in the same house as fucker- had been called at 5am and had to leave. Apparently her 3 month old baby had died. I freaked.

All day long at work I thought about that poor little baby, Kaz, child services and that fucker up all night blaring the goddamned radio whooping and hollering in the street. By the time I got home I had thoroughly convinced myself that if I had just let D call the police at 2am maybe that fucker would have turned off the radio, gone inside and paid attention to what was going on with the baby. After agonizing over it with my dad I called the police and spoke to the lead detective. I told him that jackass had been up all night partying and raising hell. I told him I knew they had been investigated by child services but still didn’t call the police over the loud music because of the threats. The detective told me that they knew what had gone on and that fucker wasn’t in charge of the children (he insinuated that another adult was in the home at the time of the baby‘s death). He went on to say that even if the police had been called it wouldn’t have changed the outcome; the baby still would have died. I asked if it was SIDS, he said he couldn’t say because the coroner report wasn’t in but he could say that they were not investigating it as a murder.

Sunday’s paper had a tiny blurb in it that read: “Baby’s death unsuspicious. Foul play is not suspected in the death of an infant early Saturday morning, the JSO said. Police responded to a home on the ---- block of (my street) around 5am. The cause of death is undetermined and is being investigated by the Medical Examiners Office, police said.”

And now to yesterday. Same fucking house, mind you. There’s a young boy that lives over there (the former owner of Kaz). He has a pellet rifle. I’ve gotten on to him twice about not shooting at birds or squirrels (I found a dead squirrel in my yard last week). He was over there yesterday shooting at a target on the ground (I guess my threats of calling the police got through). He set the rifle down to go get something and I shit you not, the three year old that lives there walked over and picked it up. The woman sitting outside watching them did nothing. Absolutely nothing. I stood there completely fucking floored. A baby died in that house not 24 hours before and she’s sitting there allowing a three year old to handle and play with a high power pellet rifle. Un-fucking-real.

Want to put a smile on a complete strangers face?

Send a card.

Seriously.

Tuna Girl’s very dear friend Patrick is in the hospital tonight recovering from surgery. Now just how cool would it be for Patrick to get his mail and find a bunch of get well cards from complete strangers across the country- maybe even from around the world (hint, hint my foreign friends)? Yeah, that’d be pretty freakin’ cool.

It's hard to smile when you don't feel good. So, I don’t know Patrick but I’m going to do it. I'm going to send him a get well card because I think it will make him smile.

You should do it too- Jot down the below address and stick it in your purse or wallet. When you’re out and about tomorrow take a moment to stop and buy a card (even a postcard). You don’t have to write something all elaborate just “Get Well Soon” will suffice. Stick a stamp on in and drop it in the post.

You have to admit 10 minutes out of your day and 39 cents (or 21 cents if you send a postcard) to make someone feel better is a small investment for a huge payoff.

Patrick Doyle
PO Box 8409
New York, NY
10150


~UPDATE~

Here's a pic of the card I sent. Yeah, it's another crappy cell phone pic but you get the idea...

NFL Network presents

NFL Replay

It really is a brilliant idea. It goes a little something like this…

“NFL game broadcasts from the previous weekend, complete with original television announcers and cameras, will be re-televised on NFL Network, just days after their live airing.

This marks the first-time in the 86-year history of the NFL that games from the NFL regular-season or playoffs are shown outside their live window.

During the 2006 season, NFL Replay will feature four of the most exciting games from the weekend, re-airing exclusively on NFL Network Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.

Two contests will be shown each Tuesday and Wednesday night with 8 and 10:30 p.m. ET kickoff times.

NFL Replay games will air in a 90-minute fast-paced format, without halftime and other elements not critical to the outcome. NFL Replay will tell the story of the game with additional features.

In order to give the games context, NFL Network will add sideline and on-field sound captured during the game and post-game press conference sound bites.

Other enhancements will include exclusive shots and camera angles from NFL Films, allowing fans an inside look at game action they did not see on Sunday. This will give fans a deeper understanding of the game, the players and the coaches.

For example, if NFL Replay was featuring the Colts-Steelers AFC Divisional Playoff where Jerome Bettis fumbled late in the game, viewers would see related comments from Bettis, Bill Cowher and others immediately after the play, as well as slow-motion footage showing the play as it unfolded.

NFL Network has the ability to select any NFL game for use on NFL Replay.”

So there it is. My (less than) two cent contribution to football mania. The only thing that could make the whole “NFL Replay” idea even better is if during every play- and I mean Every. Play. they synced it to the Benny Hill theme song (Yakety Sax). And why not? Most of us already saw the game Sunday; why not spice it up a little so we can relive those precious moments "Benny Hill style"?

And now you know why I laugh my ass off during most games.

(P.S. Kudos to you TMC, for rockin' the Kurosawa films!)

Alive- using the term loosely

All month my schedule has sucked!

Suck, suckity, suck, suck, sucks- I tell ya! I’m just not fucking functional working 13 hour shift after 13 hour shift. It will be back from vacation this coming Monday and life may begin to return to normal.

Normal….ba-ring it!

What are your plans tonight?

If somewhere along the line you didn’t say “My agenda includes going here to click on that which applies to me so I can listen to him“, then you’re not nearly as rockin’ cool as you think you are. Seriously. I’m not trying to be hurtful here, I’m just trying to impart a little truth in your world.

David‘s show rocks because he’s funny, he takes requests, he’s hot (so is his voice), and he is currently stalkerless (no, I don’t count). I would probably fit the stalker bill if I weren’t so incredibly lazy as I only had enough energy to cut the face out of all of the pictures of my ex-boyfriends and paste his face over them (it’s easier to remember dropping a hot guy rather than the usual geekin’ retard I dated). Anyway, that’s pretty much where I lost my stalking momentum. Yeah, it’s weak, I know.

Okay so to spell it out for you (since I know you’re too lazy to click on the above links) here are step by step instructions for my fellow shortbusiens…

1/ At midnight tonight, go to the WYEP stream page.

2/ Click on the stream you use.

3/ Listen to David rock out and entertain your brain.

What color is your aura?

I jacked this from over at Such A Pretty Face. It's creepy because it's pretty damn accurate.

Your aura colours are overlapped. Your most likely colours are:

Green.

Greens are strategists. They are analytical, organizers, planners, mental, abstract, inventors of the to-do list. They can be unfeeling.

Crystal.

Crystals are healers. They are private, spiritual, readers, socially awkward, rehearsed, shy, retiring, proper, misunderstood and unappreciated. They can seem fragile.

Physical Tan.

Physical Tans are soldiers and boyscouts. They are independent, responsible, sober, cautious, deliberate, calculated, dignified, reticent, individualistice and physical. They can also be rigid and inflexible.

Find out what colour your aura is.

~"Greens are strategists. They are analytical, organizers, planners, mental, abstract, inventors of the to-do list. They can be unfeeling.

Intellectually intense, and able to pare an idea to the bone-these are attributes of an analytical Green. Greens measure their own worth by their ability to be productive, generating countless ideas and projects, and by their creative ability, which allows them to devise innovative, workable solutions to problems. They are the planners, organizers, and strategists of the Personality Spectrums.

Their greatest fear is that what they create and produce will not be good enough and they will be found lacking. This low sense of self-esteem leads Greens into an emotional box canyon where being perfect is seen as necessary to earn the love and respect of those around them. The major lesson that all Greens must learn is that life can be easy, elegant, and fun, but if they wish to live that kind of life, they must give up their emotional need to be perfect."

~"Crystals are healers. They are private, spiritual, readers, socially awkward, rehearsed, shy, retiring, proper, misunderstood and unappreciated. They can seem fragile.

Crystals are natural healers. They utilize energy to transform light into healing rays. They become the medium or the conduit through which healing passes. They are able to increase their personal, physical power to the point where they are able to cleanse the minds and souls so that physical healing can follow. Their biggest challenge is learning how to cope with the gift of healing. In order not to attract attention to themselves, Crystals become the chameleons of the spectrum, assimilating other colors into their aura in order to hide or protect themselves. They clutter up their own energy field when they do this, bringing harm to themselves. This act also confuses others. The challenge for Crystals is to learn to know themselves and what their special gifts are so that they do not have to disguise themselves through emotional camouflage."

~"Physical Tans are soldiers and boyscouts. They are independent, responsible, sober, cautious, deliberate, calculated, dignified, reticent, individualistice and physical. They can be rigid and inflexible.

Physical Tans are one of the three Eclipse Colors. An eclipse is different from an overlay. To have an eclipse in the aura means that the individual has two bands of color that completely surround the body, one outside the other. These two colors are interpreted as one color. This distinctive color pairing has its own character and personality style; it is not a marriage of the characteristics of the two colors that make up the combination. The two colors that make up Physical Tan arc Mental Tan and Green. While Mental Tan and Green are both in the Mental Family of colors, the eclipse combination of the colors produces personality and character traits similar to those of the Yellow. Therefore, Physical Tan is one of the Physical (body) Personality Spectrums colors. Physical Tans experience themselves as the physical center of the three-dimensional world that surrounds them. Their bodies behave like sonar sensing devices. They are constantly sending out signals and absorbing the echoes, translating the messages physically so that they can then process them mentally. The strength of this color combination is that both components are independent, responsible, and willing to be theft own authority. This means that people with this Eclipse Colour tend to stand back and observe what is going on before they commit themselves. However, once committed, they are self starters and initiators. They have a sense of their own individualism, which they hold as sacRed.

The greatest challenge for a Physical Tan is to develop flexibility. Their experience of life has reinforced their belief that in order to beloved, they must perform according to other people's expectations. To a Physical Tan, this means that they must carry out a task, fulfill an agreement, or deliver a product before they can experience acceptance and love. This tends to make them rigid and inflexible in their expectations of themselves and others. By understanding their own nature, they can come to know that there is a place for them in life, where they will have autonomy within the system."

Yeah, I thought it was touching, too.

Elephant's Memory - Touching Story.


In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from college. On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air.

The elephant seemed distressed so Mbembe approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot, and found a large thorn deeply embedded in it.

As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the thorn out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man and with a rather stern look on its face, stared at him. For several tense moments Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away.

Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day. Twenty years later he was walking through a zoo with his teenaged son.

As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe and lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder.

Suddenly the elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk a round one of the man's legs and swung him wildly back and forth along the railing, killing him.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

(Thanks Warren)

Inner sanctum

My therapist knows I have a blog.

My therapist knows the name of my blog.

My therapist knows I’ve written about him in my blog.

My therapist strikes me as a curious person.

Should my therapist’s curiosity bring him here…I say, welcome!

Excuse the mess (I’m referring to this whole little “glimpse into my thought process/train wreak“ thing I‘ve got going on here) and side step the foul language if you would please- it’s draped everywhere. As I’ve mentioned to you in therapy, I curse like a sailor with tourette’s syndrome. If you’re looking for “depth” here George, you’ve come to the wrong place. I think we can all agree that we’ve stepped in deeper puddles. I’ll save my “depth” and “insightfulness” for the real world (as I have very little to spare and wouldn‘t dream of wasting it here). You should also know, this is not a “child friendly” site (because of the gratuitous use of obscenities and occasional penis reference) so (should you have children that have access to your computer) please remember to delete your cookies and wipe your browser after visiting (as you know, kids are smart, they know how to access the websites their parents do). And yes, mild nausea is a side effect to reading my blog.

I think you’ll find that my blog is my outlet. I rant, I rave, I throw fits and just plain show my ass in general fairly regularly around these parts. You already know I’m a sarcastic angry little snot so please don’t take the whole “Whore-Hey” thing to heart (should you actually decide to wade through all of the nonsensical crap that I write to the whole “Whore-Hey“ thing).

I know some of you (one of you specifically) may be thinking, “Dear God woman! Why on earth would you tell, much less welcome your therapist to your blog?”, why not? My dad stops by here every once in a while (heh, yeah, I know you’ve come here since the blog-a-thon, dad- I see you on my tracker), why not my therapist? The only two real major differences between what I write here and what I say in real life are the cursing- I don’t drop f-bombs in mixed company and the level of education that comes across. Amazingly enough, I’m incredibly well spoken…it’s a pity that doesn’t rub off on my writing.

Pass the popcorn, please

I’m not a movie review writer, I’m not a writer. That being said, please bear with me as I stumble through passing along my thoughts on the two movies I finally sat down and watched.






MirrorMask really was like a cracked out (but cool) version of Labyrinth. Well, minus David Bowie’s spandex clad unit (read: penis outline) (just making sure we‘re clear). Not much to say here other than it was a sweet film and I’m sure at 9 or 10 I would have named it a “favorite”.



Moving on…




American Movie (check out the website) was excellent! It is one of the best Indy films I’ve seen in ages. As David (Spiderbites, not Bowie) mentioned, the film really is about a modern day Ed Wood.

Directed by Chris Smith and co-produced by Michael Stipe (yeah, the lead singer in REM), this movie is an actual biography/documentary (which is hard to believe at times) that follows aspiring film director/producer/actor Mark Borchadt as he struggles to make his version of the “American Dream” a reality. Filmed in their hometown of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, we follow Mark for two years through his day to day trials and tribulations with not just himself and his attempt to obtain his dream but his family, friends and finances.

Within the first twenty minutes of the film’s start I had an overwhelming urge to give this poor guy a hug (and that’s saying a lot because I am so not a touchy feely person). I guess it’s because I know so many people like Mark (“the lead“) and I (at times) feel a lot like his friend, Mike Schank (“main supporting“)- a recovering drug/alcohol addict who would obviously walk through the gates of hell if Mark, his closest friend asked him to. Simply because they are friends and Mike believes in Mark’s vision.

The movie is at times heart wrenching- because it’s so easy to become attached to the cast of “characters” which are Mark‘s relatives and friends. But there lies the quandary- it’s not a movie and there are no “characters“ so to speak, you’re continually (but gently and seamlessly) reminded of the fact that it’s a biographical documentary. The old, crotchety, tight fisted, pessimist “Uncle Bill” isn’t an actor and he definitely isn’t acting. He really is Mark’s uncle. He really is an old, crotchety, tight fisted, pessimist. He’s real, in a very mortal sense.

Even though it’s heart wrenching at times to watch these struggles take place, it’s consistently real which aided it in being consistently laugh out loud funny. So it’s consistently really funny. I’d rob the film of what I believe was its intention if I didn’t mention that it was also incredibly inspiring…in a really weird way.

To sum it all up in a sentence: “I laughed, winced and laughed some more“. In a word: charismatic.

Well that was interesting- in a horrific sort of way

The last week has been a self inflicted kick to the balls. No, really. It feels like it lasted for a month. I’m not going to bore you with the ten mile long list of side effects or try to explain the process of a “mini” chemically induced psychotic episode. I’d like to try to put this little experiment behind me as quickly as possible and chalk it up to “And yet again Aza eludes that oh so beguiling Darwin Award”. Until that is, I can come to terms with, pull a cathartic message from, derive some kind of huge life lesson in or simply understand why, I do some of the stupid shit I do.

Anyway, I called my doctor early yesterday, explained the situation and was told under no uncertain terms to stop taking the Seroquel post-fucking-haste (apparently I was beginning to exhibit symptoms of a "syndrome" rarely associated with the drug. yay.)

I must say that I’m simply amazed at the fact I wrote any entries at all and to be quite honest- I don’t fully remember writing the last two. However, I do vaguely remember scaring the hell out of a few people who called last week. If they’re reading this I’d like to officially apologize and say to one person in particular…

“Dude, you’ve known me for nearly ten years- if you haven’t figured out by now that I’m a bona fide, self proclaimed nut job (and dumb-ass)….well, God love you, you’re just not going to get it. I do sincerely hope that our conversation (during my semi brief stint in la-la land) didn‘t fuck your head up too bad. As I generally keep my views regarding the universe, quantum physics and divinity to myself- I fear after our conversation that you will never look at toaster ovens the same. Again, I‘m sorry and well, in my defense- that‘s what you get for keeping company with crazy.”

In summary, I hope I’ve not done any (more) permanent brain damage. All things truly considered (or as truly as I’ll allow considering all things) overall, I feel a bit more lucid. So there’s that.

Cross sections of reality

Me: So I’m thinking this is what it must feel like when your dead.
Dad: Wouldn’t surprise me.

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Me: The only way I can describe it is- Have you ever had too much to drink but didn’t know it until you were put in a serious situation? You know, you’re half way through the drive home when it hits you “Oh shit! I SO shouldn’t be driving right now!”
Tabby: Oh yeah.
Me: Yeah, that’s the feeling I get every time I get behind the wheel and all throughout the day for that matter. Well, that or like I’m waiting to wake up. I’ve actually questioned myself on a few occasions on the way to work; Is this a dream?
Tabby: Oh shit, man!
Me: It’s fucking fucked and so am I.

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Me: Have you been going into work early to avoid being around me?
D: No! You know I have a lot to get done before the boss comes back from vacation. Why would you ask that?
Me: Because I think you hate seeing me............ like this.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Me: I feel like I should be grieving. I can actually feel the cynicism and sarcasm dying inside of me. I’m chemically dissecting and murdering aspects of my personality as we speak to make myself more tolerable to others. And then what will be left? An empty fucking shell.
Dad: Well, if you’d murder that foul language and smoking habit, I’d be happy.
Me: *sigh* fuck.

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Me (anonymous over the phone): So these side effects are normal and upping the dose by 50mg every 4 days until I hit 200mg is a common way to prescribe?
A Pharmacist: Yeah, problem is you don’t know what your maintenance dose is and won‘t for awhile. Some people maintain on 50mg, others need 400mg.
Me (anonymous over the phone): I’m just trying to figure out right now if the ends justify the means and I really don’t know that I’m in a position to try to do that when all of this feels like a dream.
A Pharmacist: Hon, it boils down to this- This is a tough drug to get on and you need to know, it’s just as tough getting off. You’re in for a rough ride.

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Me: I think I’m changing and I think I might hate what I’m changing into.
Dad: Better the demons we know than the angels yet met, huh?

A few beans shy of a burrito

Aza is temporarily out of order at the moment. Rest assured, we have crews working diligently around the clock on the problem and expect resolution (ie., semi-full functionality) within days (we think).

We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Should you feel that you’ve reached this entry in error, please direct your concern to our complaint department (here or via Aza‘s cell voicemail). We may or may not give a shit and reserve our right to do so.

Thank you for your patients and understanding.

The Management