Tabernathy is the word

In furtherance of my career plans to enter politics, I will continue to use words which exist only in my head. I also swear to 'amp up' my paranoia and fear of people and social situations by being even more convinced that I alone have the answers and everyone else is against me. I will also publicly admit that I am a racist. White people scare the hell out of me. It seems like everywhere I do go, which is a limited venue indeed, there is nothing but whites, everywhere. It's pandemic. What makes it worse is that THEY also feel they have the only answers and hate me, my opinions, and everything I stand for or hold dear. Be afraid, be very afraid. I don't have a platform yet myself, I fear this is my soapbox, but I want to make myself clear. It is my duty, indeed, my sacred obligation, to tell everyone else they are full of it. It is necessary to restore our values. It is necessary to restore our right to hate. It is necessary to restore our right to make everyone else feel uncomfortable by who they are and their personal habits or beliefs. It is necessary to restore the rights of the one against the needs of the many. It is necessary to restore the age old and proven three network system to avoid the evils of cable television. It is necessary to restore pandering to the lowest common denominator. It is necessary to supplement the V-chip that was forced into televisions to block every news network except Fox Entertainment Television. It is necessary to restore our constitutional rights to bear arms and advocate their use for violent revolution and seditious treason. It is necessary for the National Rifle Association to be involved in our public school systems so that every grade school age child should be familiar with the proper care of firearms. It is necessary to restore the censorship acts in media. It is necessary to restore the belief in God, as long as it's the one true god, the one that real Christians believe in, not those other flaky gods who believe in free will and any rights of individuals. It is necessary to remind the masses that we must restore the sacred words of the Bible which we agree in, while disregarding all the others. It is necessary to restore the rights of one insipid meglomanic to be a new messiah showing us the way to salvation, as long as we believe in the same things he does. It is necessary that it be a 'he,' because after all, what does a woman know about love, compassion, tolerance, integrity or virtue? It is necessary to keep the masses from books and literature which voices opinions other than our own. It is necessary to fear and mistrust the internet while still embracing it's effective destruction of print media. It is necessary that we believe, and instill the same beliefs in our children, that social ostracisation and derision is a necessary tool to protect the rest of us. It is necessary to accept the Bible as the very words of God, except when it's rather inconvenient to our greed and intolerance. It is necesary to believe that conservation, recycling, polution, and other left wing ideas are spread by Satan to spit in the very face of our forebearers, who wrote the constitution 'Under God' until we want to amend it. It is necessary that we adopt an 'us or them' attitude towards any immigrants of a race other than our own. It is necessary to enforce a border war to protect and preserve our borders while we ourselves engage in empiralistic activities interfereing in other soverign nation's rights. It is necesary to engage in warfare as a means of economic survival and to build a stronger economy. It is necessary to create an enemy if you can't find a valid one. It is necessary that we be mistrusted and hated worldwide because we haven't done enough to convince the ignorant that our way is not the only way, it is the very destiny ensured us by God. It is necessary to promote a society that is secure in ignorance and self-righteousness.

There. I've thrown down the gauntlet. It is time for all you right thinking people to vote for me as Governor or Senator of whichever state you live in. it's the right thing to do. For you, and your children. Or do you hate your children? If you don't hate your very own children, the very least you could do is contribute my campaign. I could use the help folks. I don't have over a hundred million dollars to spend to tell you that someone else sucks and my own feces are not odorific. I'm having to run a 'grass roots' campaign here, and in reality, I'd have better luck if I was actually selling grass door to door. Shit, if I called it avon or amway, I'd be on easy street. I'm counting on you fine folks. The right thinking people. It's time for you to speak out and be heard. This is your chance to let your fear, hatred, intolerance and ignorance be known. If not for me, do it for the children.

God bless you all.

Health, Diet, Safety tips

Been a hard week. First, in no particular order of importance or annoyance, what little food I manage to successfully eat, banded together in an unholy alliance of evil and transmorgaphied itself into stone in my colon. After about of week of this well-packed feeling. Now I know how hot dogs feel, I started usuing some Bisacodyl, a strong laxative. It is supposed to be used for one day, and low and behold, your problems are behind you (literally). After three days of maximum dosage, still straining away. Finally, in desperation about 2:00 a.m. one morning, I sacraficed my travel toothbrush in unspeakable ways and managed to rather painfully give brith to one of the pillars at Stonehendge. I went back to bed an hour or so later, relieved but very sore. The next day, the laxatives took hold with a vengence, and have been bothering me for a few days now. It's feast or famine folks, and I still have to buy a new toothbrush.

Still on drugs, I'm running out of my Percocet. I still have plenty of Norco to last me until my next surgeon's appointment, but it doesn't work as well. It does, however, have the advantage of being about $30 cheaper per refill. Since I have two new meds to fill today, I'll bite the bullet so the overall costs will remain static. New percriptions you say? Whatever for? I'm glad you asked. Turns out the numbness in my feet which makes walking so difficult and ungainly is Peripeheral Neuropathy. I've been complaining about this for over a year now, but my doctor finally did some testing and got real excited. It seems I'm not a likely candidate for this, and too young, so he'd never entertained the prospect before. It is treatable, but best caught early (say a year ago, when I first complained would have been ideal), but if left unchecked leads you to nicknames like "Stumpy."  He did warn me that diet can play a part, apparently forgetting the fact that I rarely if ever eat, salty foods, fast foods, restaurant dining, all these things are bad. I've been to a restaurant once in the past year, when Alan and Heather took me out for my birthday, and had some bites of a dinner salad. Salt is probably present in the buttered toast I have once a week or so, but other than that, I exist pretty solely on yogurt once a day.

Bringing me to diet after effects. We don't have a scale at the house, and it used to drive me to distraction that my home health care people kept after me to tell them my correct weight so they could measure the antibiotic dosages. I told them I had no scale, which promptly went out of their heads the next time I spoke with them. They were here like eery other day, if it was so bloody important, why didn't one of them bring a set of scales from their own house to answer the question once and for all? Nagging me will not get them the answer, nor give me the funds to buy a scale. The question, thanks to my primary care doctor's visit yesterday, has finally been answered. Apparently Surgeon's offices do not believe in weighing you in whereas your primary does it as a matter of course. I knew I had lost weight, but my primary not wanting to make an appointment for me while I was still in the active hospital/surgery mode did not give me any empirical data. I have it now. 41 pounds since my last visit. The last visit being 8 pounds less than the previous one. So nearly 50 pounds since the beginning of the year. Do not get me wrong, I do not advocate this diet. I acheived a similar result in the late 1980's through the use of amphetamines and cocaine, and I highly recommend that as a more pleasant way to acheive the same results. I got a lot more stuff done too. True, this is hardly a prudent testimonial, and I doubt my system could ever handle that overload again, I'm just saying that it was more pleasant at the time. 2010 will go down as a record for weight loss in the past thirty years and probably a lifetime best for the use of anesthetics and painkillers. Funny that after decades of making penance and being resistent to take anything except Advil ocassionally for my arthritis, I'm now being forefed things I wouldn't even have considered taking in my halcyon 'bad boy' days.

Well, this hasn't been one of my better posts in terms of funny or enjoyable concept, but I wanted to write something before people got the idea that I'd fallen off the face face of the earth again. Rest assured, I'm still here, still making bad decisions, and still one step ahead of a shoe-shine. I'll write more from the county line in the future. Then I'll take a codachrome picture of Juilo down by the school yard while leaving my lover.

Yours from the ether.

My PDA is PDAwesome

No really. After mentioning it in my post the other evening, I decided to bring it out of it's cradle and devote some time to it. Downloaded all the new drivers for the latest edition of Windows, re-synched the music library, updated the phone and address lists, put in a category for birthdays and special occasions (My memory is not what it used to be, or perhaps it's just that my attention span is....What was I saying?), and put in a directory for all the numbers I only have to call yearly or so, like who our plumber is, stores I call to check stock, etc, Pizza delivery numbers, Pharmacy and Store hours, that type of thing. Then updated all my personal information. Address and SSN were the same, but everything else had changed. Then a list of all my prescription medication. Basically everything you want at your fingertips because eventually you'll be asked. Did I stop there? No way. Then I went on the net and downloaded every freeware/shareware games that looked like fun. Still not through, I also went to all the free and public domain libraries and downloaded another twenty or so books. It's tough to read on a 3" screen as you have to keep flipping the pages after every paragraph, but it's still better than carrying all those books around. When you're in a waiting room, or checking into the hospital, or other type occasion, it's cool just to be able to slip it into your pocket. Great for road trips too when you're sharing a room and you read all night but don't want to leave the lights on because your companion who is trying to sleep. It was a fun way to waste a sleepless night.

I did manage to move up my Doc. appt. I had Terri take a picture of my shoulders so I could produce evidence of my claim that symetry is not taking place. Beware, the picture is not good, and Terri was laughing so hard she wasted a number of shots. Still, it shows what I meant when I said that it doesn't look quite right.

Attractive isn't it? I would have done a full body shot but Terri was already laughing snot out her nose. You'll just have to imagine what the rest of my left side looks like. Although I look really jaunty with my quad-cane. Throw in a Panama Hat and I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.

You're right, I know what your're thinking. When you look this hot, you have to beat them off with a stick. I'm sure you can feel the raw sensuality coming off me in waves.The scars on the back side and top (not really shown here) are just as non-obtrusive. Remind me to tell my agent that I'll be ready to try out for the next "Shark Week" auditions.

I'm a little at a loss as to what is supposed to be going on but then again, I am generally the last to know of any treatment options until the decisions have been made for me. I know that for a general break, if the bone is not healing well, they can re-break it and re-set it. I can't see that as an option here. More along the lines of "Whoops, we put in the wrong size. Let's try you in an extra large. Maybe a pattern. Vertical stripes are so slimming." I guess I'll find out when I go in. I jsut hope it's not like the last time when I went in for a routine appointment and was sent directly to hospital for surgery with no preparation. I like to have, when at all possible, a day or to to prepare for the experience. I also want to make sure that I get the get the "funny" anesthesiolgist. They're the last person you see before you go under, so you want one with a good bedside manner. The last one I got had all the sensitivity of a cop who says to rape victims "You've had sex before right? Well, you've had it again." Sorry, that was uncalled for, but the last surgery was the worst one and the hospital treatment seems to go downhill when you are a frequent flyer. I still have a clavicle to go, but I'm hoping I'll earn enough miles to get a liposuction on no restriction non-holiday dates.

Well, back to the ether for awhile. Or maybe I'll play Pacman on my PDA while listening to disco music through the earpieces. Good to keep your decades in line. Maybe I should do that in the old VW Van. that would complete the experience, and keep the neighbors guessing too.

A Tisk, a Task, a Shiny Silver Flask

Came across an old friend from my teenage years. When I first got old enough to purchase liquor, I made it a point to get a stylish silver flask. I was going through some old storage boxes looking for something I couldn't find, and came upon this piece of memorabilia. I remember how cool I was. Of course the size is laughable now, but back then it could last me an evening. Oh for the good old days. It polished up quite nicely, and goes rather well with the deco cocktail shaker Alan bought me for my birthday. Both are pretty much for display now, along with the polished silver ashtray with the detachable little long beaked birds which look suspiciously like alligator clips. I wonder whatever I used that for. No seriously, I was never into weed, tried it three of four times, got nothing. I guess it was just a fitting-in type of thing so again, I'd look cool and sophisticated. Don't you ever wish that you could go back to a time in your life when you thought you were hot shit and kick the crap out of yourself? I have a lot of those moments. I found all sorts of things that I had packed when I moved back to San Diego from Boise and have apparently been loading and unloading it in every move since, and there have been quite a few moves. I do believe that the over eleven years here is the longest I have ever lived in one home, including the one I grew up in.

I know I've been hit and miss with communications of late, but I'm still not in the best of places mentally at the moment. I've pretty much concluded that my new shoulder is not healing correctly. It is clear from a casual glance that the joints are not where they're supposed to be, and it hurts like hell. No killer sharp pains as much as a constant, relentless, throbing ache which never goes away. I'm eating percoset like tic-tacs. I have another appointment with the ortho-god at the end of the month, but I may as well bite the bullet and get in sooner. I knew we were going to have to go in again around fall anyway, but I may as well get it done while I still have some insurance coverage. I have been using my sleepless nights to burn movies on DVD's off Turner Classic Movies and some other channels. With all the video rental stores pretty much a thing of the past, I am the closest thing left in North County, I am nearly certain. I felt guilty when Terri bought the laptop at the time, as it was a luxury item, but it sure as hell has come in handy. I don't know what I would do without it now. My PDA was an impulse purchase back when I was gainfully employed, but I'm glad I got it when I did. As a portable library of music and books (although the screen is small), it too is a damn handy thing to have. Of course I have tons of things which are hopelessly obsolete now. It goes against the grain to recycle six high-end VCR's, but nobody wants them and they just gather dust. Same with early computers. Even small children don't want them now, nobody is that hard up. Six cell phones, all of which work just fine, ditto. Two very fine SLR cameras, and film, but nobody wants film anymore. Two Video Cameras, same story. Home theater systems and loudspeakers. Way too many for this size house, are also in the way. If anybody is interested in any of these things, please feel free to give a shout out. If our house was the kind that fronted the street, I would pile everything out front and try a yard sale. In a retirement community like this one, maybe all this stuff would still be considered high-tech. Who knows? Maybe somebody on a busier street will let me borrow their yard for a day. Something to think about. Goddess knows we could use some extra cash. (Is there such a thing? Extra cash?)

Well enough of that. Today is trash day, so time to get everything together to put out. I need to run to the store and the pharmacy this morning also. If these two tasks do not knock me out, I may even trim my beard and shave my neck. I've learned to set my set my goals pretty low these days. I found something I thought was histerical the other evening. Poor dude. Is this unfortunate, or what?

So that's all that's on my little mind this morning. Best wishes from the ether.

Sincere apology

I was just reminded thst my useage of the term "Parrot-head" might be offensive to Jimmy Buffet fans.  After spending three hours with a group of them at his last concert in Vegas, I should have known better.

From now on I will use a different term. I hope any readers understood my reference as it was meant.

Abashed from the ether

By Popular Demand

Had a great call from a 'Parrot-head' on Sunday afternoon. Just when you think your weekend could get less depressing, something new comes along to surprise you.  I say 'Parrot-head' because these fine people by mindlessly squawking things that they've heard, and without the benefit of any independent thought, choose to live or die by them as gospel. Terri's mom has picked up Palinesse as a second language. Sadly, she called just as Terri got into the shower, so I got to talk to her until Terri was out. Do you want to take a guess how many times I said "We'll have to agree to disagree" in a fifteen minute conversation? Ollie, with the full force and grasp of national and world events delivered as only an eighty year old woman living in a stationary trailer in Florida with no computer access, no newspaper or magazine subscriptions, whose sole television watching consists of religious channels, the weather channel, and Fox News, KNOWS the answers. When I say, "We'll have to agree to disagree" that means in 'Parrot-head' I'm resistent to the truth and it is your duty, indeed moral obligation, to convince me of the truth of your position. I love Ollie to death, seriously, I do, but I can't talk to her anymore. It's gotten to the point that I can no longer distract a conversation with an elderly infirmed person by discussing medications and aches and pains. This used to be sure-fire, but now it's no longer safe. I have given some serious thought to this situation and have come up with a few things that might, and I stress, MIGHT be safe topics:

1) Dusting. Difficult to blame Obama and Pellosi for that one.
2) Hard water spots on the dishes from the dishwasher. (See above.)
3) Toilet backing up. (See above, although it does confirm their opinion that you're full of shit.)
4) Spiders.
5) Ants.
6) Soap Scum in the tub/shower.
7) Laundry.
8) Trash cans with lids.
9) Trash cans without lids.
10) Extension cords.
11) Washing your hands.
12) Summer brush fires in So. Caliofrnia. (But tread carefully here, I bet if you checked Nancy Pellosi's purse, like they have, you'd find a book of matches or a lighter. And Native Kenyans are known for their remarkable muslim-powered heat vision.)
13) Tarragon.
14) Throw rugs.
15) Trimming your toenails.

This is by no means a complete lisitng, but if you're careful, you can hold a conversation on these facinating topics until you have one of those troublesome disruptions in your phone service which happen. "Are you there? Did I lose you? I'm just getting static here. Are you there?" Turn off phone for at least six hours. The urge of your caller to share the real truth will generally have passed on to another by then until they've talked themselves out.

Here's some things that I have found to be true. Most of my accquaintances of many years don't understand me; the Arabs who run the local liquor store do. When the sun rises in the West, your nap lasted a little longer than you'd planned. If you have more than two television shows you want to catch, they will all air at the same time. On that note, If you try to record an old classic film which rarely if ever plays, there will be a cable disruption in the middle of it. By the time you hear about something you'd really like to be a part of it's already over. Sex is better in your head (or your hand). Food tastes better when the people who cook and serve it are looking for a tip. Drinking alone is better than not drinking at all. No good deed goes unpunished. Dial back the charm with home healthcare nurses; better they see you as a necessary evil than a "hang-out." Never ask questions you don't want to know the answers to. By the time your freshly laundered and folded sheets hit your bed, there will be fresh cat litter on them. Things that are good for you, such as dairy products and vegetables have short life spans; things that are bad for you, keep forever. The grass isn't always greener on the other side, but the view from a nice hotel room is hard to beat. Never buy anything based on re-sale value; by the time you get around to disposing of same, it is either obsolete, worn, torn, sagging or rotting-- Treat all purchaes as the instant gratification that they are and expect no more from them. Jury duty is a privilege and an honor; for other people. If you can afford it, it's probably not worth having. Contary to popular folklore, metermaids exist mostly in the sunlight. Full moons bring out the crazy in people. New moons bring out the crazy in people. Crescent moons bring out the crazy in people. Gibbous moons bring out the crazy in people. Lunar eclipses are pretty, but you can't photograph one to save your life. The universal advent of cordless phones was due to the fact that no one can untangle a coiled phone cord.

That's it for me today. I've got to feed the hungry beasts (See above) and get into the shower so I can not stench up the pharmacy this evening with my manly musk.

May your ether be brighter than mine at the moment.