a weeks worth

there is a weeks worth of posts in my head and a year's worth of love in my bed, there is a lifetime of joy still unsaid and an eternity...

George Carlin's dead.

no, no no, no, he's on the outside, looking in...

I still am waiting for him to pop up from a coffin on HBO with that mischievous grin and a sharp "gotcha"... i mean, he should have planned for that at least once cuz, well, that would be him... then he could do one more grand finale tour and call it 'life after death' and tell us all about it... see ya around, George... or even a little square... but logicians, atheists, and freethinkers (kind of an oxymoron in itself, aye?) will always love him (and so many more links to come, someday)...




yeah, so anyway, there are easily a weeks worth of blogs, posts, entries, rambles, and other such literary assaults and fodder for fools to fill in the spaces between this and the last entry and come they shall in due time, but for now i cross the 30 hour awake mark (and have work in two hours and softball practice after work and la dee dah, ain't i the bleary eyed fool once again tonight...

and so the king, is once again our guest...

yes, two showings of JC Superstar over the weekend... a baseball game and a Melissa Etheridge concert and all sorts of fun in between (not to mention work) and life and the babble just did not find time to upload itself... thanks for missing me, even if you never say so (and i suspect there are some readers here who have remained silent ever since my first days on the web (what?... i'm not worth secret admirers and silent stalkers?... of course i am, isn't everybody?)... yeah, whatever, and all that jazz...

maybe i';ll remember to tell you how ATT sucks another time...

i shall sleep two hours or so now and hopefully not die tomorrow because i still have a gotcha to plan out for myself... loosely threaded as the babbling may be, there are messages within the context of the massive missives and assorted words seemingly randomly scattered before your eyes...

take care of yourself, and remember, falling in love can prevent forest fires...

nite nite :)

please go to bed

yes, i should, and yes, i am talking to myself more these days, but only rarely is it noticed because i do is so discreetly and all...

it's 4:16am om Monday morning and i have consumed four dinners (Yellow Dog Eats for dinner buffer and wine tasting party on Friday evening, Broadway Pizza for eggplant parm at about 2am Saturday morning, Olympia for Greek complete with interactive belly dancing on Saturday night, and Golden Corral with Rasputin Sunday evening), watched two concerts (Nada Surf in-store at Park Ave CDs and Nada Surf with Band Marino and another band at The Social), pitched for two hours and ran around in 90+ sunshine sometime Saturday morning, set my fantasy teams, watched some softball, and went in to work for a couple of hours on each day (cuz i was on-call)...

if i forgot something, see my calendar (linked on the right)... if i forgot to put it on my calendar, feel free to call and interrogate me, but you'll probably have to remind me as i probably forgot cuz i burnt out more brain cells...

one of the most fun weekends for me (except for blogger/google doing it's shut me out thing for a bit) because of the diversity of events and stimuli and food and people and fun... all that could have made it better (you know what's coming) is the one or a best friend or at least some wild passionate sex... there was some wild goofy belly dancing though, but that wasn't the same...

tomorrow (or actually, in a few hours) another month starts at work and the crunch to get all the numbers crunched and reports produced and so on begins and yet, there's dinner and a compedy improve show scheduled for tomorrow (tonight) too...

if i don't bump into the one out there before i die, at least i will die having more fun than humanly possible and that's the second best life i can imagine, so no complaints and much yays and laughter and optimism and silliness and serious fun...

may you find something similar or even better in your world :)

nite nite :)

roller coaster ride #72649

(you flash brilliance here)

it was just after midnight when I looked down and noticed I had a cut on my finger... it wasn't fresh, it stung and had the thin rid rim of slight infection, but I had no idea when or how it got there... I brushed my thumb over it to be sure and yes, it stung, it was there all right...

the clock on the wall shouted out nothing, as if time stood still... the breeze agreed, for there was none... no movement at all in the world outside the window, a still life painting of treetops and dark sky with a few faint stars scratched in it... paint chips falling from a ceiling...

I went out for a run wondering if I would ever return...

fifty-eight minutes and forty-three point seventy-one seconds later, I died... no wait, that's another story... in this story, I returned from a run mostly intact, but burning with fatigue and puffy from bloat... there I was, finishing up a report no one asked me to write because we were ranked sixth out of ninety in the state for the fiscal year in percentage of patients who made progress and I stayed two hours late to finish up a justification for an improvement plan that sets a goal to do better in this coming fiscal year and I grab my salad and head home just as Precious calls suggesting Kentucky Fried chicken...

I hem and haw, pick and ponder, and finally saw, "naaa, I don't think so..." truer words were never spoken because I sure don't think, so... I saw them pulling into KFC just as I was approaching and so I stopped and met them and made an entirely too self-indulgent a pig of myself... ever so bloated later, I wandered over to myspace to catch up on a bit of reading while nodding in and out of Carborado (the El Dorado of carbohydrates) and was inspired by a few of my favorite distractions (and I use the term quite endearingly, most sincerely, and much appreciatively) to pick myself up and head out the door in spite of being in a dragging bloated zombie state... thanks Jenny and Sharon and Cali, even if you don't know I thank you here...

of course you guys help enormously too cuz you keep me grounded cuz I know you'll be here to pick me up if I pass out, laugh it I don't (but fall over anyway), and you'll dance if I die... good morning, good morning, yeah...

and was this the night I was to get to bed early and sleep long and deep?... instead, I picked myself up just after midnight and dragged my heavy feet around the neighborhood four times... a mediocre almost fifteen minutes a lap when some voice in my head is laughing at the tears my heart sheds for knowing I should be doing the four laps in twenty five minutes, maybe less... I shudder to think how many miles the course I run really is and forget to clock it on the odometer as I park my car after work each evening... please let it be more than four miles or I am beyond pathetic... but nevertheless, even at this body's advanced years, I will not be satisfied until I am running six minute miles again... and perhaps I will never again be satisfied in that way in this life... tell me there are other ways and I might believe again, someday...

and then, I wrote in a comment somewhere:

perhaps it is as simple as understanding that life is a journey that ends in death and doing nothing leads more directly to death, while doing something, making choices, grabbing the steering wheel of your life and turning in the directions you want to explore slows the process of dying and that is what we call living...

fill that glass of life and when it gets half full, ignore those who claim it is half empty and rejoice in the awareness that it is it's simply time to fill it again :)

and the roller coaster ride just keeps on rolling...

it was some time back in the late eighties that I corresponded with a great big gay guy from Oklahoma City named Tristan McCauley... I'll let you wonder if that was his real name, or if he was ever real himself, but in fact he eventually moved San Francisco to find bliss, or nirvana, or something, and then got lost during my mid-nineties disappearance (when I put Toronto and love and family ahead of everything else, including myself, and we all know how that turned out... or at least some of you do) along with hundreds of others I loved exchanging words with... he was one of the longest and closest pen pal friends I ever had... addresses, if they are still valid (like who lives at the same address for twenty years anymore?), are lost in Toronto (and possibly packed in one of many hundreds of boxes in storage just north of Niagara Falls...

Niagara Falls!...

slowly I turn...

Well, I used to have a lover once, I used to have a friend
How in the hell you ever find one?
My song is almost over now, my story's at an end
You lived yourself a good life but a blind one.

Well I've hidden there up on the shelf
And it's funny how you've kept it all for yourself
Hey honey, could there ever be,
Should there ever be,
Could there ever be something else?

thank you, Harry

for the reminder... and I wonder if I will ever be able to access the many thousands of letters and rhymes I wrote and stored on Atari floppy disks way back then... alas, sigh, and more alas, when I think about the loss of the potential that might have come from all those words had I not buried them... up on the shelf...

I am such a creative genius, after all...

yeah, so what else is new?... I get home from work and sit back in the big green chair and can nod off till morning if I'm not interrupted, but I haven't had an evening (or night) without interruption in weeks, at least... like Monday night... and I could have joined the local movie meetup just twenty or so minutes down the road in watching Jodie Foster's new movie and snacking at The Cheesecake Factory afterwards... sure, I don't need the expense or the calories (or the temptation), but I sure could enjoy the potential of finding friends who share more of my interests and activities and energy levels...

writing about it is a step towards getting back to doing it, or so the theory goes... after all, I might actually run yesterday (figure that sentence out and you may actually start understanding me and my writing process a bit better)...

maybe I should just head over to myspace and distract myself with hopes and dreams of stumbling across the one again...

or more likely, I sit and wait for a site to load that never loads and forces me to shut down and restart the computer... these are the nights (and evenings) of the times of the life these days... which is exactly what just happened...

I think I'll eat some worms...

aren't I worth knowing?
aren't I worth loving?
aren't I worth introducing to your friends?
or not
maybe you're ashamed of me
maybe I'm not good enough
for your company
or your sister
what if I kissed her?

aren't I worth meeting?
aren't I worth reading?
aren't I someone to tell your friends about?
oh why
am I not finding more
sharing that I'm looking for
what's wrong with me
can you tell me
why won't you sell me?

people tell me life is all about networking
so I put myself out there, right here, here I am
and I leave you all messages wishing you well
I read you, I listen and respond cuz I care
can't you tell?
doesn't it matter?
there, that feels better... nothing like a little pity party to get the stupid out and get me back to laughing confidence and not feeling like I need something outside of myself so much... so the pendulum swings back to fuck 'em if they can't take a joke" and "it's their loss" and I go back to happily frolicking in the fields of my dreams with or without you... not you personally, mind you, cuz I know you're there and you care and I appreciate you... self-pathetic poor me crap comes from the generic me to the generic you, if you know what I mean...

I appreciate me... you do too... so if the other seven billion people on the planet don't, oh well, their loss... the opportunity to add one or some new friends in Oklahoma City still remains anyway, so don't forget to call everyone you know in the mid-west (or is that the great plains?) and tell them I'm coming... preferably somebody who isn’t afraid of roller coasters, ya know?... and then if they don't show up at the airport with seventy six trombones and a big parade, their loss... yup, there's just not enough of me to go around sometimes...

when did humans forget how to have fun, anyway?...

seriously serious

it happens sometimes... not often, but from time to time (or on rare occasuions) I am inspired to be seriously serious... if may be rarer than we imagine, actually, and perhaps mostly lost amidst irreverence and clouds of distracting giggles (fluffy clouds that look like bunnies and hearts and funny faces, not dark rain clouds, after all... though the near blinding flash of light shooting through the blackest storm cloud can inspire my giggles too, but then, I am perhaps stranger than most), but there are moments in which I string together several sentences of seriously serious...

I did that most recently... inspired to ponder what to say to someone who experiences the death of a mother lead me to write the following email (yes, I wrote an email... I was shocked too, but back to being seriously serious):

Hello Rick,

a beautiful spirit Cali pointed to Karen who shared the energy of your loss...

I offer a hug and I send you love - and I share my perspective on life, death, and being...

the energy of love continues through all things and our defined perception differentiating living beings and what we view as non-living beings does not stop the flow of love... I hope that you open yourself to the energy and let it help your through the loss of the physical contact with your physical birth vessel, your mother, by feeling the love she continues to send you and believe she is feeling the love you continue to send her... we can define it as memory, as spirit, as ethereal energy, as whatever we wish, but semantics only help us share belief and knowledge with those physical beings we call alive... speak with your mind, your internal energy, and she hears... listen with your mind/heart sense, and you shall too...

may this perspective be of some comfort to you at this most challenging time and throughout your life...

honest love, ric
407-325-1482

some of you might know of my final rhyme that I wrote when I was still going through puberty (or perhaps before, actually, as it's always been around in my scraps of papers) so my perspective on death may come as little surprise to you... and as a happy agnostic more than anything else, my bottom line is that I do not know what is beyond this life or beyond the current perception of the senses I access in this body... but the perspective I attempted to place into words in the email above is perhaps my favorite when I construct the possibilities of what is beyond as I would like it to be...

ultimately, I wish life to be a celebration and I wish leaving this life to be a time to celebrate having been and rejoicing in the memories that remain... of course everyone will make of it what they want to and most will probably disregard my wishes because the indoctrination into depressive dogma is so strong it defeats even the supposed respect anyone might have for a loved one (or anyone), but I can hope there are some who will rise above their fears and personal baggage and desire to be sad in order to give me one last gift...

shhhh, reverse guilt-tripping is reverse-psychology riding side-saddle and it might work if we just leave it at that, so nevermind this paragraph and whatever else might come on this subject and let the above be my final words on the subject when I am quoted...

I mean, if anything more than the rhyme itself is needed to get the celebration started...

so somewhere in your mourning, I hope you dance...

dance for the life that was real that you feel
dance for the time you remember with me
dance for the inspirations still moving you
dance me back into your reality

for I want to be a reason for your smile
so I did not waste loving you all these years
sadness only lasts for a little while
when you learn to see rainbows through your tears

I am riding the rainbows
floating on clouds
beaming with sunshine
shouting me out loud

I am singing in children
laughing in love
dancing in your mind
living above

this world was a grand time
not eternity
is waiting for your mind
to open and see

that's where I am now
that's where to find me
when you want me you'll find me riding on rainbows
riding on rainbows...
that's where I shall be
dancing for you
and always hoping
you will dance for me
dance with me

dance for the life that was real that you feel
dance for the time you remember with me
dance for the inspirations still moving you
dance me back into your reality

bummers and hope

ok, so I am done spending ridiculous sums on future entertainment for tonight... I added some concerts and a show to the schedule of future events I intend to attend... there'd be so many more if I had a partner in such endeavors, but alone I am less apt to spend ridiculous sums on myself alone cuz I enjoy attending entertainment much more when someone shares the experience and alone I often enjoy home video more than the crowd of strangers... the show is rent and the tickets (two... I am hopeful) are second row, however I did not realize they were second row side so I am calling ticketmaster tomorrow and seeing whether I can switch (in spit of their no exchanges policy, I'm hoping an exception can be made for an event as far off as April 2008... it's a birthday present to me... not my first choice, if I had other shows to choose from, but an excellent show)...

anyway, a bunch of tickets are still available in row six center are and I'll buy those tomorrow or Monday even if ticketmaster does not take back the two I bought tonight... the only reason I don't buy the row six tickets tonight is because their seating chart is not detailed enough to tell me what numbers are actually center numbers and I have a choice between 5-6 and 9, 10, 11, and 12... if ticketmaster can't help me tomorrow, I'll call the box office Monday and find out how many seats are across the center section... the venue is well over an hour away, but the show won't be in Orlando and these were the best seats in the area (other venues are two or more hours away and did not have any orchestra seats left...

I also picked up concert tickets for Brand New and almost picked up tickets for Tori Amos, but unfortunately she's going to be here the same night I already have tickets for Spill Canvas with Meg & Dia (and others) so I grumbled (the toughest part is she's going to be at the House of Blues as opposed to a huge auditorium, so the intimacy factor would be much more intense... besides the huge places within a three hour drive are already almost sold out and I'm not into sitting in the nosebleed seats for a concert or show) and moved along...

meanwhile, today was a bust...

I started out all excited as I drove to the computer show across town at the fair grounds... turns out the show has changed dramatically since the last time I went (last year) and it's now a flea market for all sorts of trinkets, odd ends, and basic cheap rip-off stuff that is great if you love shopping for junk and the occasional useful bargain (which I do enjoy now and then when someone shares the experience cuz then the junk becomes meaningful cuz we both want it) and just three vendors offering computer stuff at no bargain prices... and I was all psyched up to spend a few hundred on a used laptop (the last laptop I bought for $100 lasted two years and they wanted $150 for similar laptops at this show when it's definitely not worth that), but no such bargains were there... bummer...

so I drove home... feeling bummed, I caved in and went out to eat with Rasputin (spending money I should be saving for the new computer and eating stuff I should be avoiding for another week or few or at least until I start running again) mostly because Precious needed a ride home from work and there was another computer store (one of the few decent mostly cheap but reliable places in Orlando) across from where she works and I hoped I might find some memory for this old computer there (but they no longer carry SDSIMMs this old, bummer # 2) and we stopped in at Friday's for lunch...

lunch was delicious (and the service was exceptionally good) from start to finish (an triple sampler appetizer, a portabella melt, a spicy tomato soup, and scrumptious fudge covered chocolate cake a la mode for desert) and I even did not eat it all (as I usually do cuz I have the ever expanding stomach) and looked forward to a delicious second mean tonight, but that food went to the trash (bummer # 3b) shortly after I got home cuz I was sitting in the bathroom with a powerful case of food poisoning (bummer # 3a)... after a little while of wondering if death might not be a more enjoyable experience, I felt it was somewhat more likely that I was not going to die today (or explode) and dragged this dripping wet body out to the living room where I promptly fell asleep in the big green chair...

when I woke I caught up on the college football games I missed (bummer # 4, though not nearly as much of a bummer for me as today's other bummers) and came to the computer to check on the concert tickets I am supposed to have, am expecting, and must remember to pick up at will call the day of the concert (cuz I was forgetting when the will call concerts were and I suspected I was missing some tickets and it turns out I am missing the Dashboard Confessional tickets... bummer # 5... I'll call about them tomorrow)... while checking on tickets, I bought the other tickets mentioned above...

and that's when I clicked too impulsively on the Row BBB (second row) tickets and realized, after passing the no refunds, no exchanges page, that the tickets were Orchestra Left, seats 9 and 10 (and 1 starts at the side closer to the center), bummer # 6... so as I said when this entry opened, I'll call tomorrow or Monday to try to fix that or else just buy tickets in row D (6th row) center and try to sell the BBB tickets before April of next year (or else just eat the $110, which would be bummer # 7, I supposed, though it would be ridiculously optimistic to think there would be no further bummers between now and April, 2008, now that I started numbering... not that I expect to keep this number of bummers up past this entry as it's primarily a way to amuse myself and therein diffuse the bummerness of the bummers and it's working well)...

my tummy feels much better, though still queasy... I am still emotionally hungry, of course, cuz that is how this body responds to frustration (and bummers), but physically I am thinking I might not eat again until after the show (yes, I semi-jokingly mean Rent in April, 2008... yes, only semi-joking)... I am still hopeful that I might have some sort of more compatible (and intimate) partner in Orlando before the show... see, in spite of all the bummers piled into today, I am still hopeful...

it's good to be crazy :)

what-ev-vah

I know emotional hunger
so insatiable hunger
that the loudest thunder
is a whisper in my ears

or is that just blood pounding through this world called my head... would it be any different if someone shared my bed?... will it be any different the moment I am dead?... where is the fool who hangs on every word I ever said?... the one and only one who defines the words love and friend... she is all that matters to me when the world comes to an end...

but until then, I want you to matter... I really do, even when I say whatevah, what-ev-vah... I want to believe that we're all one I want to believe this is fun I want to believe what we share is real and never done, but do you know why I run?... do I run to forever? (for-ev-vah?)... or do I run to keep us apart or do I run - to keep me together (to-geh-the)...

I may have abandoned the idea at the root of this blog, or so it would seem from this perspective (wherever this is, where-ev-vah) at the moment (and increasingly over the last few hundred entries here... and I wonder how it's changed over the year{s}... and I wonder if it matters and who cares {what-ev-vah} and I wonder what I'm even doing here, what?)...

I know ethereal thirst
an insatiable thirst
am I blessed or cursed
can you understand my tears?

I laugh, I cry, I cry, I cry, I shed tears for many reasons for they cleanse my eyes and I can see clearly now through the rain in my mind as my spirit streams through the waterfall...

am I creative anything worthwhile, some sort of art... or am I just farting around, wasting time for nothing...

and even as I listen to Bill Maher talk to retired Colonel Larry Wilkerson (worth a listen) in the background about how the Bush-league president (who does not deserve the respect of a capital P nor the respect he gets out of blind loyalty to flag, country, and constitution) is ridiculing you and me by hiding behind the military (from Colin Powell to Patreus) and turning that defensive strength into a mockery of offensive ineptitude and political puppetry as a corporate oligarchy reaches around to fondle (and empty) our wallets while fucking us up the ass...

must be Mos Def's influence...

but even as Mos Def slurs his speech, I find value in his words (except his blind spot about his religion, like most religious folk) and Cornell West makes some great points from an intellectual perspective (though he seems more a dreamer than a realist and pity many {most?} can't see past his appearance and demeanor, including the color of his skin, and his vocabulary shoots right over most heads) and then in comes Ralph Nader (does Bill Maher have guts or is he just crazy?) to add yet another flavor to the ADD atmosphere of the eclectic soup Bill and his producers brew up each week...

I know an intellectual craving
an insatiable raving
I am tired of behaving
fuck my status and my peers

I don't care about my reputation... I don't want to be thought of well... I just want to find one person... who understands this living hell... paradise is just an illusion getting harder and harder to make a case for... sacrifice is just more pollution from corrupt minds caught up in fear and war... I just want to find one person... who understand what this life is for...

what-ev-vah...

and if I tell you all the fuck yourself would you hold closed your virgin ears would your eyes look away in shock and bury your mind in your ears would you miss every point I made and toss out any worth I am would you pretend to pity me or simply fail to understand... the mind of this uncommon man may never know a master plan and never deemed to join a band and doesn't always wanna hold your hand but once upon a midnight lost he wonders what his dreams have cost as no one shares the deepest place and no one knows his truest face... is he the victim of the times or just a joker lost in rhymes, a player mocking pride and fame or just a child playing a game...

all this may not even be about me (if you ever thought it was), but then, it only matters to the few who care and even you who are not here can only imagine who I am and hope-believe you understand... hell, most people don't even understand themselves (do you?)... sometimes I think I am the only one who does (what's true?)... one life, species, world, living in spit on a rock in the vastness of the universe...

what-ev-vah...

we are compelled to do what we must do, we are compelled to do what we have been forbidden... don’t trust me with your children, people, for I will allow them to express themselves freely and will not put restrictions on their play, I will encourage them to open their minds and embrace their hearts and explore their senses and experience life with every bit of their ability and energy turned on to the max... and you will accuse me of corrupting their minds or even condemn me with some perverse fear you project on everything around you, in your illusion of judgment, as your children express themselves freely as who they are, rather than who you want them to be...

and what if everything you know really is wrong like the prophets of Firesign once said... who's judgment would you follow, or fear, then when all is said and done (or even long before that, like right now wherever you are)... and some old prophets lost in moody blues sing isn't life strange... while most everyone else is simply waiting on the world to change...

I know a physical lust
and insatiable trust
to be alive I must
overcome your rules and your fears

so am I damned by my passion to actualized myself and experience being alive or are you condemned by your desperate fears and apparent need for conformity... don't you see that you are falling for such a false sense of belonging... don't you see that you are sucking on the teat of such a superficial sharing?... don't you see that you are buying into (and selling) such a pretentious caring?... how can you love your neighbor as you love yourself when you don't even know yourself, no less love yourself... poorly, as you do... how can you truly love anything you do not know?... blindly, as you do... how can you care for anything you don't know how to care for?... pretending, superficially, as you do... how can you trust security when you don't know anything but pretend you know everything?... falsely, as you do...

and when no one actually responds, when no one smiles with understanding, when no one offers hugs of appreciation because the words express the way they feel too... how can I not feel like I am the only one... when I ask questions and no one responds to the words... how can I not feel as if no one truly understands me... and no one truly cares, hears, sees, feels, perceives, understands, or experiences life as I do?...

don't let it get you down, it's only castles burning... I've been saying that a lot lately, huh?... are the castles dreams, or perhaps the illusions no longer bought into (but still haunting, and therein, burning)... whatever the castles may be, don't let it get you down... it being whatever may be getting you down... see, in the end I will test your patience and most likely push it beyond it's limits... in the end (perhaps long before that) I will drive you crazy in one way or another because that is just what I do (and you don't want to change me cuz you love me, right?)... is anybody listening?... hello hello hello, is anybody out there?...

what-ev-vah...

just when you think you have an open mind, I'll be knocking on a door I find... just when you think you have secured your heart, I'll find a way to tear it apart... just when you think you are one with your god, I'll find another who is not quite so hard... just when you think you can be sure of me, I'll show you something you don't want to see... cuz I know how to change and I know that's what life's about... there's plenty of time to stay the same after we're dead... and if there is a right and wrong and I am either one... I will change to make it right because right is more fun... but until we know for sure I will be trying everything... living is growing growing is changing changing is what life's all about... I'll be the puzzle in your game - just when you thought you had it all figured out...

I know an endless curiosity
and an infinite intensity
and I believe in honesty
through all laughter and tears
I'm not one of my peers
I don't buy all your fears
however it appears
your lies hurt my ears
your lies hurt my ears

and the saddest truth of all is that lies are as common as sunshine and rain... lies are part of every day life, lies are how most deal with pain... most base their lives on lies they read in books up on their shelves... and no one knows the truest truth cuz we lie to ourselves...

but what if someone did not lie... what if someone actually overcame the fears that produce and depend on and feed lies... what if someone dared to live an honest life from moment to moment... how lonely that one would be...

what-ev-vah!...

are these characters in some book we've never read or simply figments of imagination asking to be fed, running through my mind as I just where they led... or is that just blood pounding through this world called my head... would it be any different if someone shared my bed?... will it be any different the moment I am dead?... would it make any difference if these words were never read?... where is the fool who hangs on every word I ever said?... the one and only one who defines the words love and friend... she is all that matters to me when the world comes to an end...

I know that my fondest dream
an indefatigable dream
that the purest love
the truest love
the honest love
is a whisper in my ears

but even now, I want you to matter... I really do, even when I say whatevah...

what-ev-vah...

missed Friday, it seems...

I worked Friday, semi-zombieish, but stayed there the whole day and caught up on some of the work I've been piling up the last few weeks... the computer remains on the middle of the floor which leaves be sitting sideways because the mouse and keyboard cords don't reach the middle of my desk... and the 512MB isn't enough as the computer crashed on the databases a could of times... and it seems that Access 2000 and Office 2003 may have a conflict or few, but then, I've heard Office 2003 had problems from the start... it's not an upgrade from the last computer, it's just slightly newer... while the treatment is considered great and we get the kids nobody else wants from all over the country, the hospital is still in the dark ages when it comes to technology...

and when I got home, I vegged... mostly cuz the BP remains ridiculously high and the body feels like crap... I am adjusting meds, but frustrated because I never had BP this high before I started on the meds, which only goes to prove that medical science kills as much as it cures, if not more... but they'll never put modern medical care on a death certificate, now will they?...

the final episode of Stargate SG1 was kinda disappointing... it should have been a three hour amazement, but then, it has always been one of the more understated long running shows... and I'll get to look at Amanda Tapping's cute smile cuz she's apparently joining Atlantis, which might mean they've killed off the Dr in charge of Atlantis, which would suck... and Painkiller Jane is oddly interesting at times, though I could skip Friday night TV if something more interesting came up...

like life...

that's about it, unless the one is out there at this most unappealing moment of life and blogging... anyway, if you are out there, imaginary dream girl, it would be a good time to come over cuz there might not be as much time left for our magical love affair as we thought...

I'll stop amusing us now and go back to vegging...

drugs kill, medical care kills faster

ok, so just when I really feel like dropping the subject and getting back to positivity, I trip over modern medical care (alas, how abused that word is in our language, care, just one more stupid human trick) and ponder who to trust and what to do next... already turned off by my doctor of six or seven years cuz she seems more concerned about her lawyers than me, I've turned to various specialists with mixed results...

I was against starting a blood pressure medication in the first place because I never had very high blood pressure and wanted to drop weight and get healthier before becoming dependant on drugs, but I gave into the pretense of caring the doctor put on and followed her advise and started her meds...

and now I've got various specialists feeding me mixed messages about what might be causing the slightly elevated results on my blood tests and finally, the specialist for the kidneys suggests changing the medication which is known to cause kidney problems... so I do...

and tonight my blood pressure is insane...

190-something over 90-something...

ironically, my pulse is 54... I mean, I just woke from a nap, so my pulse is a good low rested athelete's pulse... it's usually in the low to mid 60s at work... I suppose that means the heart is doing fine and responding well to the exercise... the blood vessels, on the other hand, are reacting rather violently to the withdrawals from the drugs they became addicted to over the past couple of years...

as far as I can tell, the new med is at a dosage at about 25% of the equivalent old med (and I skipped a couple of doses just to see if the lowering of weight made a difference, but then, gaining 10 pounds back this past week kinda defeated that experiment with too many variables) and today the blood pressure was sick... it's probably been this high for at least 24 hours as the symptoms that lead me to actually check the pressure have been around for 24 hours and were worse last night... weird, my BP goes up at night... see, I am of a nocturnal species and not actually human after all... I wonder if the New Moon played a role...

yeah, so apparently the doctor got this body hooked, addicted to the high doses of blood pressure medications which could likely be destroying my kidneys and liver and instead of possibly suffering a stroke in the next twenty or thirty years, I now possibly have a rapidly increasing death rate from kidney or liver failure...

of course this is just speculation based on the mixed messages from the doctors, the medical education I've gotten personally over the years in schools and hospital work, the PDR on the drugs involved, and Murphy's Law...

the bottom line that has my dander in a duff is that I should have followed my instinct to say no to drugs a couple of years ago when the doctor presented me with the first prescription...

ok, so anyway, wisdom suggests rather strongly that I refocus on dropping the extra weight more than ever now (however can I go to the gym and workout with a 190/90 BP?... of course medical science would say NO!... so what?... eat air?), but it is likely that the most deprived of indulgence healthiest diet and maximum weight loss may not be enough and I am doomed to be chained to wallet-draining drug companies for the rest of this life and ultimately suffer typical human death from side effects a whole lot earlier than I might have left this mortal coil if I wasn't trying so hard to be human...

so this blog is a success! (see sidebar)

ummmm, somehow I don't think I should be celebrating, but therein we have the irony and naked irreverence of my sense of humor, for what it's worth and for anyone who might actually get it...

yeah, so we're in RealTime™ and isn't it fun... an hour after taking on of the old medications (Diovan HCT), which is half the daily dose I used to take, the BP is 177/94... of course that's my left arm... when I want to freak out doctors, I give them my right arm... it is consistently 10-20mm higher and they haven't given me a valid reason for that even when I ask if that means that the blood vessels on that side are more constricted or more clogged or something... lawyers insure that doctors do not give straight answers to anything, you know...

so perhaps in another hour or two the BP will be closer to normal... and I skip the gym tonight, defeating the purpose and therein sealing the coffin better... I always did love a good catch-22... though I always found a catch-23 clause to play with to get around and further complicate the catch-22...

whatever happened to doctors who actually provided medical CARE...

lawyers...

note there's no question mark... rhetorical as it is, the answer is obvious... tomorrow I shall try to reach the Nephrologist who changed the BP med and ask if doubling the dose (at least) is ok with him... I probably need to triple it, at least... if yes, I may just try that for a few days and see what happens... if not, I'll try to reach all the other doctors and see what kind of medical care they recommend... then I may look for yet another doctor... I mean, once you've turned human and become dependent on the medical profession, there's no turning back, is there?...

I'm bored with this... work was training (with actual exercise for a bit as the restraining techniques had to be practiced)... when I left the new computer was disconnected and waiting for the IT person to return from school to try to reach the corporate help desk in Tennessee so some techie could walk her through the steps of installing a slave drive (my old hard drive) in the hope that it was not the cause of the meltdown of the old computer and we might be able to salvage the data from the old drive so I don't have to spend two weeks rebuilding what I can of that work and accept the losses and audit hits for what can not be rebuilt... home early, I napped until an hour ago when I woke with the same headache I had last night (coffee relieved it during the day, but then, coffee would raise the BP, catch-22, so another drug must be tried, maybe)...

so here we are, bored with life and the physical fibles of this body I inhabit, bored with the process if learning to be human, bored with the loneliness and whining and negativity and stupid human tricks and waste and unpleasant struggle of survive... it is not time to die, I think, not just yet, no, one more sweeping romance, at least, one more eternity of unbridled bliss, another Anais Nin (she is beautifully played by a beautiful woman), only without suicide, though, freedom of choice is a beautiful thing too, perhaps, as the illusion of humanity melts away and the illusion of love in all it's innocent sensual wonder envelopes the atmosphere and becomes all there is...

after all, if I must consume drugs, the least I can do is choose a few of my own to experiment with, I mean, why should the professionals have all the fun, aye?... and run miles and miles and miles, after all (again), if my head is going to explode, it might as well explode with the best chemicals of all flowing through it... and maybe I'll find someone running along out there to share that moment of eternity between life and death we sometimes call love... in and out of our minds, of course...

know anybody who wants to play with me? :)

great cyst!

much like the kid waiting for the great pumpkin, the ultrasound showed wonderful images of not just the great cyst on my kidney, but others as well... I have a many cysted kidney... is it supposed to hurt more now that I know about it?...

I mock my kidneys and modern medicine, but I shall still bring all the test results to the nephrologist for further learned opinions and continue taking the body to new levels in the gym and accept that life is pain (you remember, I said so, so there) and it's all part of the joy ride towards death and I'll enjoy it more than anybody else does because I can...

the joke is on me, after all, if the pains I feel are actually deadly and not actually the gym workout muscle rebuilding... it's not always easy to tell, ya know (all those no pain no gain kocks at the gym know, though I wonder if they ever exercise their minds or cosmic psychic parts, aka ethereal essense or spirit or whatnot... it's the whatnot I am interested in most)...

so I took a night off the gym and slept through most of Enterprise and woke just after midnight and went to bed and didn't sleep, so I came out and went to myspace and found a message from a cousin I haven't seen in maybe twenty years or more and wow, what a blast from the past that was... I wrote back, passed through some wonderful memories and painful crap, found out the woman who adopted me near birth and who I called mom most of my childhood died last year and the man who married her when I was six or seven is still the same unpleasant old man he was, and ate some oatmeal... the sun rose, work in two hours, I think I'll nap now...

the secret is to enjoy it :)