A Ceramic Fish Joint

It looks like I’m a nerd. Maybe. Then again, maybe I’m just a dork. Sometimes a geek. But mostly a nerd, I believe. Look! I’m obsessing!

(via a bunch of cool people all over the interwebs)

Hi there. Me again. Your not-so-regular narrator. I haven’t had much to say. Things suck, lots. Doctors telling me that I am lying about hurting and/or I will always be this way. Also, lose weight. When I explain that I’ve changed my diet and eat about as healthy as I can given our circumstances but exercise is damn near impossible from pain they say, “Yeah…it’s difficult.” Well thank you, genius.

And, you know. Okay. So I say this sometimes and I honestly don’t mean to brag. But I’m smart. I’m really smart about certain things. Medical stuff? Hell, I’m a fucking encyclopedia. Tech stuff, pretty darn smart too. Smart about a lot of stuff. And while my memory sucks with some things, others – like conversations – I can remember verbatim.

That said, I find it utterly insulting when I pay gobs of money to different (many different) doctors and they know less about things than I do. Or tech support people. We got DVRs (finally!) yesterday and they didn’t work. I spent hours fixing them, most of the time on the phone. Being asked to check that everything is plugged in, etc. When I went on my own and did a factory reset of one box, deducted from codes on the box (not screen as there was no image) that the box was fine but connection wasn’t – the guy was speechless. And then fought with me when I asked if there was a signal returning from either of our boxes as, per him, a digital box only transmits data one way. How then could one be charged for PPV/On Demand stuff if the box didn’t tell the company you bought it? There’s a big failure in logic.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose my cheap phones; soon. My SIM died for my Blackberry. I have another phone that I hate, but my primary number is the BB one. So I tried to get the company to send me another. Normally they can, but the system kept telling them to send me to employee phones. I said I needed it now and would go pick one up. Ended up buying from eBay as there is nowhere here that sells single SIMs for my provider. Now, normally care can activate this. But I think there’s some weird flag on my account. I tried getting my billing changed, which care can do…they said employee phones would have to do it. So, I’m kind of scared that they’ll have to do the SIM update. Which may mean they look into my account and find out I’m not, uh, an employee. And my (now 65/month) bill will be much, much more. A Blackberry and two regular lines? Yeah… With awesome minutes and txt and such? Yeah… It would be cheaper to get an iPhone for me and let my dad fend for himself. Except for how I have bad credit and prolly would have to sell my kidney to get one set up.

What else. Mom is still sick. Just went to my doctor’s colleague at University of MD on Friday. She has a procedure in a week. Hopefully no surgery is needed.

My car is still not my own, nor do I have another car to use. This makes me sad. Also sad is the 20,000 miles put on the car since I came home – not by me. And the insurance I pay on it each month. And the fact that when I want to go somewhere I have to actually ask because someone might need to go somewhere. I have to ask fucking permission to use my own damn car. I’ve informed my dad that if he doesn’t get another car fixed or bought by the time the next payment on his mom’s house comes in, I’m buying a copy of the title (since he managed to fuck up getting the title on it) and signing the fucker over to him. He can figure out getting it fixed to pass inspection, get it registered, get it insured. Poof. I’m done.

Also speaking of his mom’s house. Did I mention there were things she had promised me for years. For instance, her bedroom suite. It was beautiful. My dad never bothered to get the stuff. She’s been dead over a year. The guy buying it didn’t actually start buying it until April. And doesn’t even pay every month (they have an agreement where he pays x each month until it’s paid off, if he doesn’t dad can default the “loan” and take the house back to sell to someone else.) He’s missed 3 payments since April. Out of five (Sept hasn’t been paid yet, but he has till the end of the month.) Well, a couple weeks ago the guy bitched because the furniture and stuff wasn’t gone from the house. So dad gave it all to him. To sell, trash, leave there to furnish the place. Stuff that had been promised to me is gone. Not promised by my dad, but promised by my grandma. Even if she was a bitch. So very wrong.

So many things are wrong here. I am so sad here. I am so angry here. And so very stuck here, which makes it all worse.

As I sit here waiting for a particularly odd cheese sandwich to cool, I was realizing that I have some…unique food preferences. Or habits. Or laziness. Who knows.

So, for some time now, I have taken to making a not-so-grilled cheese sandwich by taking one slice of sandwich bread and sprinkling shredded cheese on top. Bonus if it’s taco cheese (more on that later.) Then, microwave it for however long I feel like and wait for it to cool. The cheese kind of fries. The bread gets a little crunch, I’m guessing from the cheese melting into it. It’s not entirely horrible. Plus, with a prep time of 30 seconds and a cook time of…oh, until I remember to stop the microwave – it can be done in a minute. Then I just have to wait until it doesn’t burn my skin off to eat. YUM.

Now, the taco cheese. As I was adding it to my not-so-grilled cheese sandwich, I was thinking about my history with taco cheese. As a young, poor college student in my first apartment living off of student loans – I ate horribly. Like. Super super bad. Caffeine was the highest priority, in any form. Soda, coffee, pills. Oh, those were the days. Back when the mini-thins were real, the yellow-jackets actually jacked you up and speed was so very easy to get. And when speed wasn’t, LSD was. (Note: One hit of LSD will keep you awake for at least 12 – 16 hours after you should have passed out from lack of sleep AND boasts your mental…uh…perception of certain things making it an ideal addition to philosophy papers, midterms and finals. No lie. I actually made extra money by dropping acid and doing other people’s philosophy papers; a day to read the insanely large and complicated book and a few hours to pound out a paper.)

On a tangent – the first time I did acid my lovely friends ended up leaving me alone when I was peaking. Not cool. They all had their reasons, but I’m just saying if you physically put the acid on a person’s tongue and it’s their first time – they are your responsibility for the trip. Thems the acid rules. Never let a n00b trip alone. Bad stuff can happen. Anyway, so I’m peaking and realize I can’t feel my skin. Up to this point I was trying to read to keep a hold on a wee bit of reality but then the damn words kept jumping off the page. Very frustrating. So I took to, uh, biting my hands. Pain, you know. Pain to keep a part of my brain focused from freaking the fuck out. Which I nearly did a few times. When I realized I had no feeling on the entire epidermis, I decided to see just how deep it went. So I decided to make something to eat. Curly fries. The best damn curly fries in the world from the cheapest damn market ever – Aldi. Loved that place. And eventually found one in Tampa. But, yeah. Tangent of a tangent. Because I couldn’t feel, I kind of ate them a little too soon – before they cooled down. Let me just tell you: understanding exactly how your digestive system works because of a crazy experiment thought up while tripping? Kind of surreal. This was back in the day when my digestion wasn’t fucked and the food actually started to go past my stomach while it was still warm. Very, very weird. Now, since I’ve already done the research for you – you can save yourself the trouble. Turns out that the lack of feeling only reaches so far inside. Or, rather, pain receptors stay in place but actual sensation is gone. So the hot hot fries? Could feel them. Once they were cool, couldn’t feel them and nearly choked. Don’t try this at home, kids.

Who am I kidding, though. Acid is way hard to get ahold of now anyway.

Ok, back to the point. Weird food I eat. There’s the sandwiches. But they came from a much earlier idea in college of not-really-tacos. I couldn’t afford meat and didn’t care for it much anyway. So I would use tortillas to make a faux…something. Quesadilla, maybe? One tortilla, a smear of taco sauce (mild, smooth) and then cheese. If I was lucky, taco cheese. In the oven for a few minutes. I had a gas stove – the range was unpredictable and the oven was worse. Which made food adventures even more fun! Eventually I accepted the chunkiness that is salsa and just ate tortilla chips and salsa for a few years as dinner. No, really. This wasn’t even during “lean times” – had a good job, roommate…just was too lazy to cook. Or, well…too lazy to decide what to cook I guess.

Then, once I embraced the salsa, I actually graduated to real quesadillas. With sour cream and salsa and everything. And chicken sometimes! It was a huge move for me. HUGE.

Now I’m back to my taco-cheese sandwich. But that’s just cause it’s leftover and, well, I’m lazy and sorta hungry but not too much hungry and my mouth hurts cause OMG oral surgery. Holy hell that shit hurts. And I miss my angry broken tooth. That could have been saved had I not had this awesome panic disorder that prevented me from seeing dentists for a decade. And when I did go to the dentist I had not one, not two but FOUR panic attacks. And he couldn’t even get the tooth out plus decided I needed some sedation, which he doesn’t do.

So, oral surgeon this past Tuesday. Starts out I’m going to have nitrous. Except I’m already having a panic attack. With a full flow of nitrous on. They discuss twilight sedation then decide I need to be knocked out. I’m all for it. Yes, I paid 125 bucks for a few minutes of nitrous. Plus, they’re going to bill me for the sedation. Took 15 minutes to get a line started. Because they blew the first few IVs with the Versed they gave me. (Side note: Versed is a fucking joke. They give it to me and expect me to mellow out. Not realizing that I’ve taking enough benzos to put down a rhino just to get to the appointment and am still in full on flight mode. Seriously. 10mg Klonopin, 6-8mg of Xanax. I learned that 10mg of Xanax puts me in the hospital…not for overdose but because I black out. Imagine. A limit, I’ve found it. Anyway, this short acting Versed crap is a joke and I always tell them that…they never believe me until I’m hyperventilating.) So, got a line in my chest finally. I say I have to pee. I’m told it’s bad timing. I hear the oral surgeon ask for my dear sweet Propofol. And then I have someone ask how I’m doing. I say I have to pee, again. They’re all, gotcha. And start undoing everything, then taking out the IV. I freak, thinking the last one had blown. Nope, they’re done. Two minutes of yanking the root out. It’s so surreal that you’re awake, you don’t feel sleepy, have no recollection of falling asleep (do to the hypnotic properties) then you’re suddenly awake again. No recovery. Just…awake when they stop giving it to you. Side note: If MJ really was using this stuff to sleep, that’s just creepy. I think I’ve mentioned it before – it’s awesome to just be knocked out. And as someone with mad crazy insomnia who knocks herself out nightly with various over the counter and prescription meds I look forward to that moment when all of a sudden you’re asleep. But Propofol is different. You don’t have REM sleep. You’re in a paralytic state. No dreaming. No body-mind restoration. Also, creepy. I mean, you get used to it. But it’s disorienting to be awake and then awake again without realizing you were ever asleep. My only clue was that instead of having rubber propping open my mouth on one side, I had gauze stuffed in the other side to stop bleeding. And even that took me a moment or three to figure out.

Imagine. An entry meant to be about my bizarro food habits getting sidetracked by drugs (both legal and non. – with the non-legal being all in the past-tense, of course.)

Stay tuned for Bizarro Food 2, wherein I describe my distrust for nearly every condiment known to man (save 3 that I can think of) and how, as a kid, I taught myself to like weird food so that others wouldn’t eat my stuff because I’m such a slow damn eater (HOURS! Hours it takes me to finish a small meal!) that if it weren’t unappealing then someone would surely eat it. Then there’s the drink saga. Yes, come back for more! Now, my lovely benzos are making me sleepy and I think I’m going to finish it off with a muscle relaxer cocktail. Those things…they rock. One hour they kick in and it’s right the hell to sleep. Plus I keep waking up super early and with the whole lack of natural light in the basement my mind never really knows what time it is or what I’m supposed to be doing in the sleep/wake phase.

A final note that has nothing to do with anything. Leverage? Is a brilliant show. TNT on Wednesday nights. So freaking awesome. Plus, ALL existing episodes are available on Netflix to watch instantly. I’ve spent the last 2 days catching up. Yay to @wilw for not only being on the show in an awesome role but telling everyone about it. Seriously. Damn good show. Like, Firefly good. Okay, that was a stretch. It’s still good and has eye candy for everyone. And theft! And cons! And downright trickery! Good show; very good show.