Friday, Bloody Friday
or
Paying The Price

Black Friday is depressing, and it scares the fuck out of me.



I will never understand the waddling herds of house-fraus that set up temporary villages outside of retailers for as long as a week. I can't even understand a single night in freezing rain.

I'm not always so keen on my family myself, but it's sad that they'd rather dream about saving 15% on ipods than spend time with their loved ones.

Often they "aren't even looking for anything in particular."

One of my greatest fears is being trampled to death. Like many other animals, large groups of humans have a tendency to stampede. I've only been in a stampede once before, but the memory will haunt me for life: he incoherent roar of the crowd; the overwhelming body heat; the inability to take a full breath, because every time I exhaled, the walls of meat surrounding me compressed my ribs ever tighter, like a mouse in the python's grasp. The inability to move, except where the crowd took me, unable to fight my way out. Unable to escape. My heart spasming like a clutched sparrow.

Well, that's what Black Friday shoppers do, every goddamned year. The minute retailers open their doors, the slavering hoard bursts in, rushing displays of goods with the mindful grace of spooked water buffalo. Many become injured. Others DIE. We are talking about human lives ground into extinction by their own greed and the greed of others.



Kind of makes me wonder how many avid Black Friday shoppers consider themselves Christian. Isn't greed a sin? A . . . deadly sin?

They aren't human anymore. They're a mob. They tear at each other with fingernails, knives, and fists for the last Xbox. They fatally shoot each other - at Toys R Us.

This is one of the ugliest sides of humanity. It makes me ill. Look at their wild eyes - the rabid desire to buy something, anything, EVERYTHING! for no reason other than to have it. Buy buy buy BUY! Sell your soul for 25% off blu-ray DVD's!

Recovery
or
"The Otorrhea" Is Not The Title of An Italian Opera

For those of you who didn't know, I've been very sick lately.

The illness struck Greg first, who developed ear pressure and pain on first one, then both sides. That was about two weeks ago.

I left for Vegas on the 16th, feeling shaky and nauseous. I slept almost constantly once I arrived. I chalked it up to nerves. After all, I had no appetite. I began to have feverish dreams, waking every hour or two to wander the house disoriented, before dropping onto the bed again.

Somehow I scraped myself off the carpet long enough to make it to The Pirate's Ball across the street from my house - in costume, no less. Nerves, just nerves, I told myself. A few drinks into the night, my senses were dulled enough to dance and frolic with the other pirates. See, I was going to be fine!

When I awoke from nightmares on the 19th, my lymph nodes in my neck were enormous. I could barely turn my head. I had pain inside my left ear, and couldn't walk around without bumping into walls. I had body chills. I had visual and auditory hallucinations. I'd never had a bug quite like it before.

Naturally I went to the doctor. My good friend Sam took me, as I was broke, and in no condition to drive. I had the equilibrium of a drunk. (Bless you, Sam. You saved my biscuits.)

The doctor was unsure which microbes were ailing me. After looking into all of my cranial orifices, I believe her exact words were: "I have no idea what it is, but let's give you some kickass antibiotics to knock it out of you." We began with an injection of Rocephin. She then prescribed me Doxycycline - 100 mg capsules, 2 of them a day. No kiddie stuff, here.

Rocephin is the antibiotic of choice for preventing infection after major surgery. It's also effective against meningitis, septicemia (blood poisoning), Necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating bacteria), bone infections, as well as typhoid fever. Among many other things. They administer it by injection or IV. I got mine shoved into my flank, which hurt like a bitch, but I didn't care too much. Injections work swiftly. I wanted to feel better as soon as possible.

Doxycycline will take just about any bacteria (and some parasites) out of commission. It's often used to prevent resistant strains of malaria. It'll help you if you've been exposed to aerosolized anthrax. If the Europeans of the Middle Ages had access to doxycycline, they wouldn't have known the scourges of black plague or cholera.

Either one of the two will take out every bacterial STI known to man.

I felt somewhat better the next day. Enough to go to the firing range with Sam. He's the one who took that freaking wonderful photo of me with the m249 SAW.

Don't tell the range master, but (guns + girl) = SEX^r , where r is how many rounds I shot on full-auto.

We also had a lovely luncheon at the Red Velvet Cafe. I recommend it for all vegetarian, vegan, and cake-loving types. They make the world's best desserts. All of them VEGAN. (Are the tears of angels vegan? I suppose they must be.)

By the next day, I had devolved into a bed-ridden amoeba. I was so weak and woozy, I could not stand of my own volition. I lay limp under the sheets, sticky and wan like a poorly made waxwork.

Arturo moved the spare bed into the living room, so I could watch movies with him and use the computer while I rested. I stayed in the same spot for nearly a week.

I'm unsure whether it was the illness or the medication, but while I lay that week, I endured strange symptoms, even as my throat and ears began to heal. Great purple contusions appeared mysteriously on my body. (Editor's note: as of 10/07/2010, the original bruises are still green shadows, and later ones are yet purple.) Nausea and vomiting kept me from eating or drinking for hours at a time. And the fatigue was smothering. Never in my life have I been so tired. Yet when I closed my eyes, demonic technicolor faces leered at me in the darkness, mutating into hideous crustaceans that smushed and garbled into one another until I begged Arturo to turn on the lamp and we slept in the light.

I recovered slowly. By the time I finished my antibiotics, I felt no more physical symptoms, and my appetite has returned, but the fatigue remains. How long it will be until it fully lifts? I don't know.

All I know is that Greg never had the bulk of my symptoms. Instead, his illness concentrated in his ears, dampening his hearing and causing him pain in both sides of his head. He also experienced the nightmares and feverish thoughts that made my illness so hellish. He also has otorrhea. Which in layman's terms means:

Kermit green goo coming out of your earhole.

Don't let the photo deceive you, kids. This stuff is Kermit the frog frickin' green.

Would someone like to tell us what on earth we had?

UPDATE 10/7/2010: We've both been given the clean bill of health. I'm still really tired, pale, and shakey. Greg is too strong to admit it, but he looks kinda sick still, too. Ears still leaking green fluid. Doctor says this is not worrisome. Whatever.

But it's not Lupus. It's NEVER Lupus.

P.S. Here's some articles on my antibiotics in case you guys think I'm making everything up. Copy and paste, you lazy bastards.


http://www.drugs.com/pro/doxycycline-hyclate.html

http://www.rxlist.com/doryx-drug.htm

http://www.webmd.com/drugs/drug-7012-Rocephin+Inj.aspx?drugid=7012&drugname=Rocephin+Inj&source=0&pagenumber=4


http://antibiotics.emedtv.com/rocephin/what-is-rocephin-used-for.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000848

Heartbreak
or
Way Out In The Water See Her Swimming

It hurts me viscerally that a girl can't be effected (yes, because it had an effect) by a song these days without being picked apart.


If I so much as comment on a song, that labels me "wannabe emo," or worse, "emo."


Human Nature so often disgusts me so much that I am loathe to write. You hear that, dissenters?

No, of course you don't.

Against your wishes I will post this:






I was there for their - for Placebo's - concert in Minnesota. In Minneapolis, to be exact. I thank them so deeply for even coming to the states in the first place. I was lucky to have a friend who was going to college there.

It changed my life.




I think I might have been born 50 years too late.

Deadly Little Lady
or
"HOLY SHIT, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?"

I stepped into death's parlor for tea today. Luckily, I didn't stay for dinner. Phew.

Otherwise, this blog wouldn't exist any more. Whatever would my gentle readers do to waste time after they had finished with the news?

At any rate, I survived. The poisonous spiders, that is. I feel like a J. R. R. Tolkein character even saying that, but it's absolutely true. Tonight, at my domicile, I encountered two black widows. One of them was absurdly large. The other was somewhat more like what one might find in a zoo or entomological collection - that is to say, of average size.

I have photographic evidence.

Bella Morte of the back porch

I found the first specimen on our back patio while accompanying my friend, Becca, outside while she smoked a cigarette. Thank goodness I had turned on the patio light, because I almost stepped into the little lady's web, while barefoot no less.

Little. BAH! She had to be at least 2.5 inches in diameter. Never in my life have I ever seen or heard of a black widow so large. I spied her twitching amid her chaotic, glistening strands, surrounded by the corpses of her prey:

The Lady at home.



Those are full-sized cockroaches suspended below the spider. Ya know. For scale.

I had to kill her. I had no choice. The apartment is riddled with cracks and seams that lead to the outdoors. What if the little lady bred? We'd be overrun within days. I mean, I might survive if I were bitten, but what about my cats?

What am I saying . . . I didn't kill her. I'm too chickenshit for spiders, thank you very much. I did what comes naturally to every woman: I sent the menfolk after her.

First, Greg went outside with the camera to capture the spider's good side. He took probably 8 or 9 shots at close proximity, trying to get the perfect view of her hourglass. Then we sent out Arturo to get her with the Raid. I'm pleased to note that "Ant and Roach Formula" is equally effective on spiders, at least when it comes to a direct hit.

Everyone celebrated the death of Bella Morte - particularly myself, who had come so close to walking straight into fang-range.

Becca and I decided that she should take her cigarette in the front yard, instead. We'd had enough deadly arachnids for one night. Greg performed the role of chaperon. I'm glad he did. It was his sharp eyes that caught the second Black Widow.

They seem to like hanging upside down in their webs, don't they?

This new spider was about a third of the size of the original find. She much more resembled the black widows I've seen before in captivity. Certainly still deadly.

By some stroke of adrenalin-induced madness, we decided to capture it in a plastic container. Don't ask me how, but Greg did the honors in one fell swoop. No feinting, no whimpering, just POP goes the Tupperwear around our little horror and it was done.

Macro shot through the plastic. Look at those forelegs!

And now what to do with her?

That is the question, isn't it?

Becca wants to take her home. Fine. I told her she can have the damned thing, just don't let it go within a mile radius of me.

Ugh. Greg said her web felt like cloth gauze, it was so strong. It gives me shivers to even think about it. Especially since I imagine these won't be the last black widows we find around this place . . .

Catsup
or
A Mell of a Hess

Very well, gentle readers. I see that you want an explanation of where I've been, and who I've been doing. Very well. For now, I shall give you the facts.

- Yes, the rumors are true. I was married to this guy Zack for a year or so.

- Zack and I divorced. He has a new life now, as well as a kid. Amazing, considering how he always told me how much he hated children. I don't have to rag on my ex husband. I'm sure his daily life is hell enough.

- I dropped out of Wash U. I wasn't enjoying my time there. Wasn't good for me. I think the stress shaved about half a decade off my life expectancy.

- I've been living by my wits and wiles ever since.

- I'll be going to mortuary college in about a year. I want to become a Mortician. This shouldn't surprise anyone.

- Las Vegas is my current base of operations.

- I'll be moving back to Saint Louis for a few months in August . . . so my friend can finish his degree.

- I feel like such a tool for facebook linking my ex husband. I want you all to know that.

- I am now an F cup. Haters can suck it. I love my big fake tits, and no one can spoil that for me. You will worship them, or get the fuck out. Ridiculous rack FOR THE WIN.

- My breasts weigh 2lbs each now. I subtract that when i weigh myself.

- My cat died. I'll do a memorial post when I can look at his pics and not cry.

- I got a new cat to fill the void. He's probably the messiest animal I've ever cared for. We nicknamed him "Puppy Cat" because he eats like a Labrador, wags his tail when pleased, and is easily 16lbs. Bigass tom cat. His name is Forest. I named him after Forest Whittaker, because he's big, black, cuddly, and has a messed-up eye. YA RLY

- Brazil nuts are loaded with selenium.

- I recently went to disneyland and rode all the thrill rides at least twice. I also proposed to Greg. Like I said, more on this later, with video.

Comments/questions are highly encouraged. I miss my old readership.