If It's Physical, It's Therapy

So, I discovered, much to my undying chagrin, that my therapist is correct. Why I am chagrined that someone I hire is actually doing a good job is beyond me, and something maybe I'll need therapy about later, but I digress (as usual). He says I can't get over my feelings, I have to get through them. Which sucks dirty goat balls wrapped in dried donkey shit (as my friend and promising future OFW Alison might say). He also says I must exercise every day (I'm not-I'm only doing it like every other day. Ugh. Why is everything so HARD???) and write every day if I am to avoid the deep depression that lurks on my peripheries. See, I may have already told you this, but I have a brain that wants to kill me, and I have a disease that tells me I don't have a disease (alcoholism). I chose the crusty old guy as my therapist because he doesn't believe in anti-depressants. I do believe in them, but I can't take them. (The list of things I don't believe in is staggeringly long, and includes but is not limited to: unicorns, organized religion, astrology, flavored vodkas -well, except for vodka flavored vodka, bans against wearing white before or after certain arbitrary holidays, and intelligent Republican Presidential Candidates.) The reason I can't take them is because they all (well, only the 14 I have actually tried over the years) give me the worst migraines the world has ever seen...een...een...en...nn.

Anyway, my therapist believes the drug companies are criminal pushers, and that many doctors are nothing more than "mules" and "lackeys" of the U.S. & International Pharmaceutical "Cartel". I pretty much concur about the drug companies, but I happen to know one or twelve actual physicians, and they are all genuinely concerned with their patients well-being. But what-EVER, I can't take them so I found someone who would NEVER prescribe them. Well, he's not a doctor so he couldn't even if he wanted to, but my point is he's got other tricks up his sleeve for treating depression, which don't involve pharmaceuticals, or cults, or shedding clothing, or supporting public television, so I figured, what the hell (By the way, I support public television and you should too. What? It's my blog, I can say what I want). So he says I am NOT depressed. He says, "You are sad, grieving and your heart is broken. That is not the same thing as being depressed. Quit whining." Fucker. He says I need to sit with my feelings and cry when I need to, not ruminate on or dramatize about why I'm crying (fucker) then get on with whatever I was doing before I burst into tears. And he says if I feel angry go ahead and tell people what I am angry about, but I don't get to flip people off in traffic, or yell at or call people names, because, "While anger is a perfectly natural, healthy emotion, flipping people off, yelling at them and calling them names is abuse." Fucker.

He also believes deeply, reverently and fervently in physical fitness and thinks it's the cure for most all of what ails us. He's been combining talk therapy with personal training for about 50 years (I told you he was old) and during a typical session after I bare my soul he makes me lift weights and do sit ups and jumping jacks (fucker!) and I'll be damned if I don't feel better. The first time I lifted weights with him, after the 3rd set of 15 reps I said, "This is hard!" and he actually yelled at me! He said, "I never said it was easy! If it was easy everybody'd do it. Quit whining." Fucker. Burgess Meredith has nuthin' on this guy. (You youngsters can google Burgess Meredith and Rocky) He's been telling me (nagging me, really) to get off my ass and start writing again if I want to be all fulfilled 'n shit...but I have been too lazy, too slothful, too...scared. But yesterday I broke through my own metaphorical blood-brain barrier and wrote something down. And it didn't kill me. And I felt better. Not great, but better. I'm not exactly on a roll, but things are loosening up. Fucker.

Just Because I Don't Talk To You Anymore Doesn't Mean I Don't Love You...

Her: How long have you loved him? Me: Since the day I met him. Her: How long ago was that? Me: Eight years, four months and around 2 days. But no one's counting. Her: But you have been with others since the first breakup, over eight years ago, right? Me: Yes, of course. I am not a saint or a martyr. Look, think of it like a wheel: There is the center hub, which is him at the core of my being. Then there are spokes radiating to the outer rim of who I am. All the others attached themselves out there. The center position was already filled. By him. Her: Are you sure there's no chance you will ever be together? Me: Yes. Her: How do your know? Are you psychic? Me: I know because at the end of the day, no matter what I say or do, no matter what he says or does, no matter what anyone in the universe says or does, I am still me. Her: Oh. I see. I'm sorry. Me: Me too. Her: How do you keep, you know, going on? Me: I think when you strip away all the stuff clinging to who I am, what I am most of all, despite all outward appearances, is practical. It isn't practical for me to not go on. It is too easy to die. Anyone can do that. It's much harder to endure pain and keep living, and keep my eyes peeled for happiness, or peace or even just fun. Also, I'm naturally very curious and I frequently startle myself by how easily my grief is able to be pierced by anyone or anything that makes me think. Then I start thinking and wondering and imagining and paying more attention and then I know dying of a broken heart is not something I am capable of. But it's OK, I'm good at other things. Her: Like what? Me: Like talking to strangers like you on an airplane, for instance. Her: Huh. Yeah, you are good at that.

It Appears I'm Going To Live After All...

So I saw the charming and talented Dr. H this morning. Upon entering the room he exclaimed, "It's so good to see you again, young lady!" See why I adore him??? I have been on the wrong side of ahem, 40, for more than a decade, so I lap that stuff up! Then he asked me why I waited so long to see him after the onset of symptoms & I told him I was afraid of looking like a hypochondriac. He assured me he doesn't come in on a day off for hypochondriacs, said my cough was really bad, and asked if I preferred "evil western medicine medicine like I'd take myself if I had what you have, or some more naturopathic-type remedies?" I said I thought the time for natural remedies had come and gone. He said, "Smart lady." I mean really, I am all for natural remedies if they work, and sometimes they do, but sometimes you gotta bring out the big guns that have actual science behind them and can kill germs and stuff. So I got my evil western medicine medicine. He said I can go back to work on Monday and said, "Don't drive after taking your cough syrup." I think I can handle that. So it looks like I can put off having, "I told you I was sick!" put on my tombstone for another day. He told me never to wait so long to see him again when confronted by an upper respiratory ailment & I promise I won't!

Long Time No See!

Bet you thought I died, huh? No postings since the end of August of 2011! Well, I'm not dead. Not yet, anyway. But a lot has happened. I'll try not to bore you to death as I fill you in... First, on August 28th, I officially got a boyfriend! I know, I know. How can an Old French Whore have a boyfriend? Isn't that against the rules? Well, it's not against the rules, which, by the way, I make up as I go along. Plus, he's both UNEMPLOYED and a MUSICIAN! So, I got that going for me. Now I know again what you're thinking. (It's so cool to be psychic) "Does an OFW have to support her boyfriend to retain her status as an OFW?" The answer, mes etre cheris, is "Mais NON!" OFW's DO NOT support boyfriends!!! EVER! Well, emotionally they do, but that's all. Unless they are filthy rich, which I am not. So, let's just say he is self-supporting through his own contributions made to himself while employed by a certain behemoth local software company for many years. So he enjoys the lifestyle that all us OFW's aspire to: one of laziness and sloth. Well, I aspire to laziness anyway. Sloth I think I have down pat. Even though I HATE the sight of the word, I admire his ability to live 'frugally' (it's such an UGLY word!). Now here's something about this OFW that you probably don't know: I'm crazy about the bass guitar. Always have been. As a kid I was always listening for the bass line. While others my age were listening to The Partridge Family, I was listening to P-Funk. Get it? It's in my blood. Now that I think about it, though, not sure where it came from. No one else in my family is a bass freak. Must've been the mailman...just kidding! My sainted mother, may she rest in peace, would never have cheated on my father. Anyway, my personal crest, if I had one, would read "Verdere Bass!" Which is of course Latin for "Turn Up The Bass!" And my fella is a BASS PLAYER!!! How cool is that? A whip-smart, smart-ass, computer-geek musician! I hit the mother load!!!! As grandma would say, I must be livin' right. Aaaaanywayyyyy, this musical genius is always transcribing chord tones, writing books about Triad Pairs, attending and participating in "Jam Sessions" around town, composing music, and making tremendous messes in my kitchen. Be still my heart. It makes me swoon just to think about it. Sigh... Secondly, my job has literally (OK not literally, figuratively. Sheesh.) eaten my brain. Between having a brain-eating job and a boyfriend, I haven't had the time or energy to devote to my most unimportant blog. Until now. Now that I have been sicker than a dog for 17 days with an upper respiratory infection from HELL (which I contracted from the BF while nursing him back to health. Hmmm....he must pay.) So today, I broke down and called my pulmonologist, the charming and talented Dr. H. He's the best in town and he's been "mine" since 1999 when he correctly diagnosed me with Atypical Walking Pneumonia and lung abscesses (eeewww gross!). My G.P. kept telling me I had a cold. For 7-1/2 months. While I was coughing up blood. When I pushed her for some tests, she called me a hypochondriac & recommended I see a therapist. I may be a hypochondriac, and I certainly need therapy, but I think maybe she shoulda ordered a chest X-Ray and a culture, dontcha think? Fucking doctors!!! Some of them are so good and some of them should have just gone to plumbing school. Then 15 months ago, while being treated for a spine injury with long needles (it's a technique called 'dry needling'. Sounds nasty, huh?) the incompetent nurse practitioner performing said treatment punctured my lung! I ended up in the E.R. I walked in clutching my chest. The man at the desk said, "What seems to be the trouble?" I said, "My chest hurts. I think my lung is collapsing." I shit you not, he pushed a button and 3 nurses rushed through the double doors and grabbed me and whisked me into an exam room. "Slow night?" I asked, head swiveling between the three of them. "Heart patients have priority", one of them said. "I'm a lung patient, not a heart patient", I said. They ignored me. The E.R. Doctor came in and barked orders and told me I'd be OK. I said, "I'll be OK when you get my left lung to stop collapsing." He actually argued with me. Then he got surly, & after all my heart tests came back negative, he asked me, with a sneer, "WHY do you think your lung is collapsed?" I told him about the 'dry needling'. He said, "Well, your blood pressure is through the roof." I said, "Well, what happens to your blood pressure when you're in pain and no one is listening to you?" He was not amused. But he ordered a chest X-Ray which showed that, indeed, my lung it was a-collapsin'. "Whaddaya know, she's right!" He said. Asshole. Anyway, I digress. So I went back to my trusty pulmonologist then, and he being the. best. doctor. ever. said, "Well of course you weren't having a heart attack! You're too young and pretty for a heart attack!" I love him. You gotta love a physician that insightful. Soooo, I called his office this morning because if I don't work I don't get paid, and I cannot afford much more of this staying home sick crap. I told his nurse my symptoms and asked, "Should I come in or am I just being a hypochondriac?" She says, "It doesn't sound like hypochondria to me. Let me talk to the doctor and call you back." She called back and said, "Dr. doesn't see patients on Wednesdays but he wants to see you tomorrow at 10:15." So now I'm not sure whether to be relieved or scared. After all the work absence from this illness I probably won't have a job to worry about anymore, so I'll probably be writing more often. Silver linings. I'll let ya know how it goes tomorrow...

Fuckity Fuckin' Fuck!!!

Dan Savage is right, now we have to come up with another definition for 'Rick', too, because re-defining 'Santorum' to mean "The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex" was clearly not enough. Here is Dan Savage's video appeal to Santorum to stop attacking gays.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/602a41c3d7/dan-savage-s-new-threat-to-rick-santorum

Santorum also needs to stop attacking science...

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/26/7490109-santorum-gop-not-anti-science

Um, Rick, you just tried to prove you are not anti-science by saying you can believe in certain theories like 'evolution' and 'global warming' or you can believe in God. Like 'evolution' is not really substantiated in the fossil record. Oh yeah, some heathen with an overactive imagination just made that shit up. And Global warming? What are you thinking? 'Naw, that's just God fucking with our weather patterns. It's a mystery!' I don't know, is it just me or does that sound like the complete opposite of your 'loving God'?

How can you seriously be anti-science? That's like saying you are anti-air, or anti-truth, or anti-logic, or...oh, rrrright, you are all those things. Science, people, the thing that gave us the cure for the Bubonic Plague. That figured out what radioactive isotopes were and the rate of their decay. That invented the Atomic Bomb that enabled us to defeat EVERYFUCKINGBODY in the world back in the '40's. That stopped Polio and Measles and Syphillis...that discovered combustion and flight and computers.

SANTORUM: SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY. I just posted on Facebook: "This dude is apparently pathologically incapable of not having idiotic statements flow out of his gaping maw every. single. time. he opens it." This is quite possibly the nicest thing anyone with functioning gray matter can say about this self-righteous and colossally moronic fuck-tard. Wait. That was harsh. I apologize, fuck-tards.

But wait, there's more!

Here's another G.O.P. genius named Rick: Rick Perry. Another reason to redefine that name, too.

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/135250/rick-perrys-gay-alcoholism-comparison-is-anti-science/

Alcoholism and addiction are a disease. Homosexuality is not. If he's going to now try to alienate both gays AND alcoholics, I'm afraid there might not be anyone left to vote for him. What's next Rick? I'm all ears!

A Few of My Favorite Things...

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/08/17/exp.piers.christine.odonnell.cnn?hpt=hp_mid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcYitwFsQGI

I love making fun of stupid deluded fundamentalist Christian (Motto: "We put the 'mental' in fundamentalism!") republicans (That was just one giant oxy-moron, wasn't it?), but I can't mock them any better than they mock themselves. Christine O'Donnell: Really?? A Candidate? For what? Involuntary mandatory sterilization? ('Cause I don't want her breeding, or is it too late? Has she already spawned? Fuck, I shudder at the thought.) Drug testing? 'Cause she must be high! The bitch is just stone cold fuck nuts as Lewis Black would say. Or as my muse/friend Daniel(from now on referred to as MFD) says she is a "superstitious-magical-thinking-fairy-tale ignorant dumb ass predator fascist". I hope she falls on hard times and has to do hard-core porn to support her huffing habit. What??? A girl can dream...

Happy Birthday, Dad...And We're Proud of You Uncle Joe!

Today is my dad’s birthday. He is 79 years old. He still rides his bike hundreds of miles per month. He’s on no medication and is not obese. His heart, lung and brains work just fine. He is the baby of his family. All his older sibs who have passed on, passed 90 years of age first. I hope I have his genes. I hope he passes 90 years of age at least. He’s a cool cat, my dad. My dad says the doctor on the rez when he was a kid always said, “If anyone survives childhood here, they got a pretty good chance of living to a very old age.”

Alfred Leroy ________ was born in a tiny house, more like a shack I’m told, on the Spokane Indian Reservation in 1932. They did not have running water or electricity. His mom was 40 and he was a surprise. His dad was around 60, and boy was HE surprised! My dad was one of the few reservation indians who made it to and through college at that time. He got his undergraduate degree from Eastern Washington University and his Masters from OSU. His oldest sister also graduated from EWU. (The women in my family have always been uppity. Now you can't swing a dead cat at my family reunions on that side of the family without hitting a college graduate.) He had 2 older sisters and 4 older brothers. Now he has 3 older brothers and no older sisters. One of the brothers, uncle Joe, is one of the most funny fuckers you will ever meet. ("How do you take your coffee uncle Joe?" "I take it in a cup." I wonder where my sarcasm comes from?) He used to be pretty racist and homophobic, (which has always made me scratch my head and go "Hmmm???" when I see oppressed ethnic minority hating other oppressed ethnic minorites...) but when his grandson Aaron came along; half black (Oops!), half Indian, smart as hell, funny, charming, handsome, athletic, talented and loved by virtually everyone he ever met, well, uncle Joe had to change his tune. And he did. It wasn’t easy, I’m sure, but he loved his grandson. And when Aaron came out of the closet 15 years ago, he dealt with that, too. When Aaron died from cancer last year, uncle Joe could not have been sadder, nor more proud of his daughter Kaye for raising such a fine young man. Uncle Joe is a WWII war hero. He was a bombardier and flew 84(!!!) missions. His unit has been at rest since WWII ended, but it is being reactivated and they are having uncle Joe hand over the wings to the new command (not sure what handing over wings entails…) So tomorrow my uncle, a Spokane Tribal Elder, will be in Sacramento with my cousins Mick and Bob fulfilling this last duty to a new generation of warriors. I usually like to write funny sarcastic things, but there’s nothing funny about it. We are all very proud of his service to our country.

Anyway, let's get back to the uppity women in my family, shall we? Aunt Winnie and Aunt Mary Jane got it from their mom, and we all got it in our bloodstreams I guess. The Truly Unpleasant Mr. K______ (my ex-husband) used to say, and I am quoting verbatim, "The women in your family scare the shit outta me. They're too strong." I took it as a compliment. He didn't mean it as one. As if there is such a thing as "too strong"! Maybe for coffee. Ha! What am I saying??? Coffee too strong! Hahahahahaha! Cousin Betty was a woman who spoke her mind and did what she wanted to do. She would invite me & whatever fortunate young fella I was currently banging to her house for dinner (but only if she liked his shoes) and if she couldn't open a jar she'd shove it at said lucky fella and say, "White man open." Really, where's the problem? Once when she was in Las Vegas for a trunk show (she made and sold extremely high-end one of a kind Icelandic shearling coats with Native designs hand-painted on them. They started at like a gazillion dollars), the front desk wouldn't help her get her racks of extremely heavy coats downstairs and into a van, so she said, "If I have to stand here and set myself on fire to get your attention, I will!" They paid attention after that. Once when I was freshly divorced and wanted a nice drama-free, intimate, grown-up Thanksgiving ('bout time-I was 42 years old and still had never had one of those) for me and a guy and a couple of relatives, I thought, "I know, I'll invite Betty and Aaron over for dinner and we'll have a nice, tasteful, calm little Thanksgiving, instead of a chaotic free-for-all, like it usually is in my family."(I have 5 siblings. We all have our own special brand of crazy.) Now, follow my logic. And try to forget for a second (as did I) that these people share my DNA. Betty-21 years my senior, a paragon of excellent taste, an expert on art and antiques. Extremely well educated, well-read and well-travelled. Then there was Aaron-ten years my junior, handsome, smart, funny & charming, educated, well-read and worldly, without being a bore about it. Oh, and gay, so of course he's well groomed and has nice shoes. So I bring these 3 people together, hoping to impress this guy with the grace and easy worldliness of my amazing family, and Aaron starts needling Betty over desert, about how she looks a lot like uncle Dan. Now, no disrespect, I loved my uncle Dan as much as a gal can love her favorite uncle, but no woman, I mean NO WOMAN, wants to be told she looks like a guy who was then 81 years old, especially one who rode himself hard and put himself away wet as much as uncle Dan had until the prior 10 years. He literally finally sort of settled down when he was about 70:-) So Aaron keeps after her, enjoying the rise he's getting out of her, and Betty snapped, and next thing I knew she is launching her then 63 year old body at my then 32 year old cousin with a war whoop, and pummeling him about the face. It was all carnage and pandemonium and curse words and, Jesus, who does that? Seriously, that was like sticking your head in a hungry, untrained, undomesticated lion's head and daring it to bite down. Me and the guy (yeah, that didn't last. Can't imagine why...) had to pull them apart. I gave Aaron a ride home, the guy took Betty home. I was mortified. But ya know, as my friend Alan says, "If it's going to be funny later, it's funny now." I was laughing about it by the time I got home. I've never tried to have anything resembling what someone would consider a "normal" holiday since then. Like my AA sponsor Anita says, "Normal is a setting on a washing machine."