I recently came across this little video and for me, this is exactly the stuff that nightmares are made of. I can’t figure out what is worse; the hideous orange outfit she is wearing, the weird dancing or the fact that she may have ruined CSI Las Vegas’ theme song for me forever.
Monthly Archive for October, 2009
Eek I almost forgot to put up a blog post. Almost failed one of my objectives for the 101 in 1001 days. I think it’ll be just one minute before midnight or something by the time I am done writing.
Anyways. Next week it’ll be a week of saying goodbye to people and therapy. It is just lightly freaking me out. It is not so much the whole actual therapy part, but the people. I’ll friggin’ miss the people like crazy. I’ve spent well over 10 months with some of the people in my group and nearly 18 months with the therapists. That is a huge chunk of my life right there. From 4 days in the week to three days in the week and then suddenly 1 day in the week.
It will be a big adjustment for me. I have already started to line up some things to do. Well I hope those things will fall through anyway. There is the good news that I’m almost completely out of the red numbers at my bank account. I’ll be, at the most, in the red for 100 Euro’s (since there’s the whole groceries part). In about 10 days or so I’ll get my monthly payout and will block the credit I have with the bank. This means I won’t be able to get back in the red numbers again.
I am really looking forward to that, I haven’t been out of the red numbers with my bank account for over 5 years. I think this may even need a celebration or something, or at least something to acknowledge the fact that after 5 years I finally did it and that there are only the other debts left. I still need to pay 33 euros to 1 company. About 300 to another and 800 to yet another, but I’m slowly getting there. I will get rid of the 33 euros this year, the 300 within the next 6 months and the 800 in hopefully a year so that, if everything goes according to plan. I can start to live debt free in 2011.
Lately I’ve had all sorts of cramps and aches in my body, most notable is of course the pain in the neck, but this morning I was in a whole different league of pain. I woke up with a slight cramp in my left calve, nothing to worry about. I did a little stretch and all of a sudden my leg was completely locked up and shooting bolts of lightening through the calve muscle.
I could not move my ankle up and down or even rotate the foot. It was completely locked in a 90 degree angle (the ‘normal’ position when you stand on it). And dang did it hurt. I nearly flew through the roof. It stayed locked for about half a minute. Longest 30 seconds I’ve ever experienced. After it passed the majority of the pain went away, save for the little stabs when I put to much pressure on it, or stretch it out.
Gonna ask my physical therapist on how to deal with it, maybe she’ll even give it a little massage to loosen the muscle up.
A little bit ago I wrote about the pain in my neck and how it goes on fire whenever I have an added dose of stress. Heck, before I went to see a physical therapist about my neck, the muscle on the right side would cramp up on the mere HINT of stress.
While the massages helped loosening up the muscle and it doesn’t cramp up as much as it used to do, I still think there is something wrong with my neck. Perhaps the muscles are not the only problem that needs fixing. I think it may even be the vertebrae, or whatever those bones in the neck are called. When I move my head to a side, it almost feels as if there’s sand in between them. It certainly sounds that way, like sand in between two flat stones.
Then again I don’t think I’m even properly aligned in my whole back. Sometimes it feels like I’m uneven. I have an appointment with my physical therapist this Friday, so I am going to consult with her on this and I might even call my doctor. The amount of times that I feel the need to crack my neck or my back is unsettling, but sometimes it is the only way to make the uncomfortableness go away.
There are just some of those days where you only encounter ‘what the heck is that all about‘ moments. Today was one of those days. It started this morning on the bus. This woman, I believe to be about 60 or 70 years of age, stepped in the bus and looked around for a seat. A young woman, mid twenties, got up and offered the old lady her seat. What did the old lady do? She flipped the young woman the bird. Seriously. She was only offering a seat. Not a lot of young people do this. You should get pissed at the people who don’t do that. You’re bitching about that too.
Then, later in therapy, something was said to a therapist which had me scratching my head in confusion. Not only that, I got a bit angry to. How dare this person talk to her this way. Yes I’m quite overprotective of my therapist(s).
Just a short one for today. Tomorrow I have a little bit more time and I’ll write more about that life update.
What do you say to a woman who has made A LOT of lesbians and bisexuals very happy on a daily basis (save for the occasional holidays, even the gays take a day or two off). A simple ‘thank you’ just doesn’t seem right.
In April 2002 there was this lesbian who was dissatisfied with the lack of lesbian and bisexual entertainment news. Sarah Warn took it upon herself to create a website that focused on that exact topic and named it AfterEllen.com. Yup, the name does indeed refer to the coming out of Ellen DeGeneres.
What started as a small entertainment website grew into something much, much bigger and turned into a full time job. Something even Sarah Warn didn’t see coming.
“To my surprise, it turned into a full-time job, and then snowballed into the wonderful, messy, often inspiring, sometimes exasperating community of readers, writers, bloggers, and vloggers that it is today.”
// Sarah Warn – Passing The Torch
Now, after seven and a half years, Sarah Warn is ready to pass the torch over to someone else. As of Nov. 1 Karman Kregloe will take over as Editor-in-Chief. Though Sarah is handing over the controls, she will continue to be active on the site in the form of her monthly ‘Visibility Matters’ column, occasional blog posts and commenting on other articles along with the rest of us.
I know I am just one of many whom have thanked Sarah for her extraordinary work, but I wanted to say my piece. I’d say that most of the acceptance of myself came from belonging to the AfterEllen.com community. Reading the news, the advice in the forums and the heartfelt stories from other AE readers continue to make me feel like I am part of something special, even with how big this community has grown.
Thank you Sarah Warn.
So. I was cleaning my bedroom earlier and wanted to vacuum only to find out there was little to no suction power. I opened the container (I have one of those cycle things) and it was completely empty. So I clicked the container back in place and took off the hose. Couldn’t find anything wrong with that either.
I reattached the hose and pressed the on button. Again, little to no suction power. Took off the hose again, and completely took it apart until there was only the actual hose left. I couldn’t see anything in it so I turned on the vacuum without the hose and noticed the suction power was fine without the hose.
I shook the hose a little, but nothing came out. I reattached it and turned on the vacuum. Again, little to no power. I took the hose off again and shook it some more and a bit harder. I didn’t see anything falling out so I reattached it to the vacuum, but I still got the same result. I took the hose off again and grab a long pin to see if I could push out whatever was in there.
Before I did that I noticed something dark and long on the floor. I looked a little closer and just let out a loud EEWWWW. Something awful came out of the vacuum hose. It looked like a giant snail, and it was wet too! It was even glistening. I had accidentally sucked up some water two days earlier and I guess that, including all the dirt made a pretty good clog.
But that wasn’t all…. I threw the snail looking thing away and reattached the hose, and turned on the vacuum. And would you believe it… it still had little to no suction power. SIGH. What is wrong with that thing? So again I took off the hose and shook it a little. Nothing happened. I almost gave up on it and decided that if it failed again after trying this time I’d probably need a new vacuum cleaner.
And so I reattached the hose, turned it on… and there was a loud bang! It scared the crap out of me. Not only me, but the pets as well. Both rabbits came flying out from their hiding places (they hate the sound of the vacuum cleaner) and tried to seek comfort at my feet. I gave them a little hug and went to check on the vacuum cleaner if I had really broken it this time. I opened the container and noticed two blobs of wet things. I guess that was the rest of the clog.
I threw it away and re assembled the vacuum and turned it on and it worked perfectly fine!
Lesson of today: DO NOT SUCK UP WATER WITH THE VACUUM CLEANER (even if it was an accident)
In an earlier post I talked about Angels and Rosaries and what they represent to me. I also said I didn’t believe in THE God, but I do believe in Angels, but think they are something else then represented in the traditional way. I am beginning to believe I am an Agnostic Atheist. While I don’t believe in God/Gods, I do not deny the possibility either.
It is weird in a way. I DO believe that there is more then this earthly plane, I mean seriously, why would we be here if there was not another place after this where we can LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES.
Who knows what really goes on when we pass.
In Part 1 of the Big Important Life Update I spoke about friendship and about people actually caring after I had my big breakthrough. I ended on a good note saying that I hope everyone can live their life to the fullest. I also spoke about how my time in therapy is almost done and over with.
It is true, yes. I am actually nearly done. About a month or so ago I had my evaluation where we looked back on the tree months before and what is to come in the three months after the evaluation and set a few goals that I wanted to accomplish. Things went a little wonky at therapy because of vacations and the fact that the ‘head’ psychotherapist for my group had fallen ill and it would be a while before she would return to work. It had the entire group quite worried (especially me because I’m weirdly over protective of the people in my life, even if it is a therapist) because we did not know exactly what was going on, al we had heard was that she was sick and wouldn’t be able to come in.
After a week or so we told her co-therapist and other therapists that we were quite worried and we would like to know what was going on. After conferring with her, they told us what was going on and why she wouldn’t be able to come back for a while. She had an enormous pain in her shoulder that shot through to her arm and hand and they were afraid it was a tendon infection. While it was a huge relief that it was not a life threatening thing, I absolutely knew how she must have felt.
Whenever I have stress, or if something is going on, it immediately takes its toll on my body, specifically the head/neck/shoulder area. Just around the time that my therapist got sick, it was a very stressful time for me. I was worried about the last part of therapy, didn’t know what to do and it just took a lot out of my body. My neck completely cramped up, my shoulder hurt and I pretty much would have daily headaches.
Because the pain and stiffness in my neck got so intense I decided, albeit a bit late, to go to the doctor and he told me to see a physical therapist because one of the muscles in my neck was completely cramped up and pretty much wouldn’t budge without proper treatment. I found a physical therapist at a medical center nearby, it was actually just a block away and would take me two whole minutes to ride my bicycle to.
I made an appointment and met with an intern and Sandra, who would be my phys. therapist after the first session. They asked me all sorts of questions then tried some movements to see how far my neck would move and such and then the intern did a little massage therapy on my neck and that felt absolutely FANTASTIC… until the next day.
That morning I woke up and couldn’t even turn my neck to EITHER side without pain shooting through. Imagine an burning elastic band getting snapped against you REALLY HARD and then multiply it by oh, let’s say 10 times. That’s how much it hurt. Though I could hardly move I still decided to go to therapy. I’d rather be miserable at therapy where I could talk about how miserable I was then wallow in it at home. I CRIED THE ENTIRE WAY OVER. I KID YOU NOT
Thankfully one of my fellow group members was already there and comforted me. I called the doc’s office and asked his assistant what the heck was going on, if I should come in, or visit my physical therapist or what. THEN I CRIED AGAIN. I couldn’t even speak normal.
The assistant was like “aw gosh, you’re quite emotional about it”
Well yes woman, I AM IN THE WORST PHYSICAL PAIN OF MY LIFE DAMMIT! OF COURSE I AM EMOTIONAL ABOUT IT.
She said it could be a side effect from the massage I received because they had messed with the muscled and tried to loosen it up and the muscle was responding to it. She said it could get worse before it got better.
FUCK THAT
She said she’d confer with the doctor and had him call me back. Doctor confirmed that it was most likely a side effect of the massage and that I should call the phys. therapist and have her take a look at it. So I called her up and she said the same thing. Then she told me to come in and she’d give it another whirl to try and make the shoulder/neck area relax more.
It actually helped and we decided to do the massage therapy twice a week to get the muscle to relax faster and then spread out the appointments and make sure that area would stay relaxed. Next Friday I will go on for my second to last appointment. I can already say that while the muscle can still get quite tense, it goes away faster and isn’t nearly as cramped up as it used to be. Even when I get stress and it cramps up again, I simply have to stretch my neck a little and keep it moving, the cramping goes away quite fast.
While I believe there is still something wrong with that area of the neck, or at least just the muscle that will always be a weak spot. I can say I feel 90% better then a few months ago.
to be continued…
Who in your life seems especially resilient?
Can I say my therapist? Or is that just a big cliche? If not, then it would be one other person from my therapy group. She just seems to bounce back every time something happens to her.
What characteristics would a person need to develop in order to become resilient?
Patience… above all. And a whole friggin’ lot of determination to make it through.
In what areas of your life do you think you’ve been resilient?
A lot actually. Death in the family. Abandonment. Betrayal.
It is often said among educators that a strong indicator of resiliency in children is the presence of a “charismatic adult.” In your own childhood, who was the charismatic adult who inspired you to grow positively?
My mom. No doubt. She’s always been the glue that kept every thing together. Tomorrow it will be 10 years since her passing, but she’s still with me every day.
Can one be tough and resilient at the same time, or are they opposite traits?
Absolutely. Why wouldn’t one be able to be that?
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