ILIKEDGINGER.NET

My cats are so artsy/surly.

(I don’t know when I drafted this, possibly a month ago. I started it and ended up distracted, so I saved it as a draft and went away for a while. Gonna finish and do a new post.)

Tennis - Marathon

I’m feeling really good right this second and I have a few minutes before my chivalrous men (my beau and his father) come home and we all bend over the hood of a my Cadillac and get our hands dirty. It’s supposed to be a team effort, but I have a feeling I will be regulated to Googling RPO codes and passing out warm slices of pumpkin bread.

When all is said and done, my car will be safe again. Working brakes are a virtue.

Unfortunately, my chivalrous men cannot help me as far as my body is concerned, unless this is a Jackie Treehorn feature and I had no idea. The ultra disgusting mutated, mishapen, grotesque bodily organ disease I have is back with a vengeance and it looks like another surgery may be in my near future. Thankfully, I recently was hired on as a ~real~ employee at the mega-corporation I work for, so my insurance situation has been greatly improved over the plan my temp agency offered. I’ve been using up my company’s HRA money like there’s no tomorrow (actually if there was no tomorrow, I wouldn’t bother).

This time around I feel like I can look at my medical situation in a different light. I’m not scared anymore and though kidney failure would be so lame, I think I can put it off. I’ve always been a fantastic procrastinator. This time, the doctors visits are more annoying and funny than somber and terrifying.

My first day diving back into the taking care of myself thing was an adventure. My blood pressure is out of control and all in one day, the following happened:

 - A gynecologist’s nurse took my blood pressure and said it was normal, at 120/80 exactly and didn’t understand why I told her I was seeing a doctor about my blood pressure later on in the day. That blew my mind, because I take my bp a couple times every day and without medication, it hadn’t been that low in years. Later on, my doubts as far as her basic medical abilities were confirmed, when it logged in at 190/110.

- At the internal medicine doc, I was told they wanted to take blood and do an ultrasound to confirm the extent of kidney damage. I went into a dirty little room and got nude from the waist up for the nurse. They suited me up with one of those paper vests and started pummeling me with the ultrasound wand. After a while and some confused “huh?” action from the nurse, she told me she wanted a urine sample. I started to put my shirt back on and she said, oh, it’s ok. We’re the only ones here and the bathroom is right next door, if you want to just go over there. Now, I was sticky with ultrasound jelly and my glorious chesticles were not well covered. I had my doubts, but decided to test the waters and take a step out. As soon as I did, I noticed directly across from me was another open room, with a patient standing inside staring at me. Instead of doing the rational thing and immediately going back into the room I was in, putting my clothes on and leaving for another doctor, I sprinted to the bathroom and locked myself in. Oh, I gave them their pee sample. It was one of my cleaner, better productions. Of course, then I was trapped. Trapped in a bathroom with a cup of my own pee. I stayed in there about 15 minutes and people were knocking on the door while I yelled occupado! Eventually I decided to just let them hang loose and go back to the ultrasound room to finish what I started.

This visit also included the nurse at one point, leaning over my body to get to some nook she wanted to image, whispering in my ear “You are very warm.” and then later three nurses being unable to operate one of the machines, until the doctor’s assistant came in and restarted it. I let them take my blood, as well.

AND THEN…

I remember one last piece of advice given me. It was during the exuberance of the rich and frantic ’20s, and I was going out into that world to try to be a writer. I was told, “It’s going to take a long time, and you haven’t got any money. Maybe it would be better if you could go to Europe.” “Why?” I asked. “Because in Europe poverty is a misfortune, but in America it is shameful. I wonder whether or not you can stand the shame of being poor.” It wasn’t too long afterward that the depression came. Then everyone was poor and it was no shame anymore. (via John Steinbeck – A Letter For Beginners « Zee’s Wordly Obsessions

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Update, in a few words.

Back in May I went on a motorcycle trip to Utah. I can say it was fun now, because it’s months later and I have forgotten what it is like to be horrifically sick while hiking. Sick to the point, my eyes had swollen until I could barely see and at one point, I puked into a beautiful mountain crevice. But hindsight, rose-tinted glasses, and Flickr have convinced me it was a good experience.

The rest of the month was uneventful. I have worked nonstop, barely had an ounce of fun, minus birthday (I’m 24 now) adventures at Medieval Times and a seedy IE stripclub. Other than that, the honeybuns cutiepie loverface and I have been sitting around watching tv and movies, as if they were free for the pirating and have for the most part, forsaken social outings.

Other than THAT, we are looking for a place to buy. I mean, he is looking for a place to buy. I am looking for a place to contribute to a mortgage payment, which otherwise I have no part on, aside from house/condo picking and decorating. We’re still looking, but we have found some promising prospects. We might be playing house for real soon.

Earlier in the month we went to Florida, to the moist (stop pretending you hate that word) lands I spent my teen years in. I love it there. I don’t care, I mean, people say Florida citizens are weirdos and hillbilly swamp people and white trash, and they are, but it’s also really pretty there and the people in the particular beach community I love the most are typically harmless, lovable drunks and tourists. It was fun, we met up with my mother and sisters straight outta Sverige and took in a lot of dolphin watching and sand dollar hunting. I think if I lived there, I would end up with a spectacular beach bod from all the gulf swimming I’d do, because the Gulf of Mexico beaches are the BEST beaches in the country. Absolutely, no lies. Try them, you’ll like them. However, to live there, I’d trade my pudge for horrible Florida humidity hair, and I just don’t think I could do that. I suppose that’s why people retire there.

Adios!

(via Huell Howser - Guest DJ Project on KCRW)

The playlist of my favorite gay adventurer from Tennessee!

So predictable, yet Good!

The Joy Formidable - I Don’t Want To See You Like This

The lady from The Joy Formidable has my hair.

I missed Long Beach Pride today because I overslept after staying all night, relishing in some hetero relationship rage. No explicit details, but the man in my life has been making some moves towards a very drastic life change without mentioning it to me. Aside from the fact we are in what I consider a serious commitment, I also live with him and our belongings and lifestyle are tied up in one another, so if one of us were to, say… trying to join the military, it would very heavily impact the other, even if you ignore the emotional or “but I thought I was important enough to let in on these things.” Instead, I find out via his casual beer conversation with his friends at a TGIFridays in Corona. Livid and feeling unreasonable, I think I maintained. I stayed quiet and relatively sober, however, I will mope about it the rest of the day, and in the course of this, flake out on my work friends and their parade.

Next weekend, Catrick, his bro, sister, her husband and myself are all going on a trip to Zion (Utah.) for a hike. I’ll be riding motorcycles with the first two and stopping in Vegas for a night on the way. Here’s the thing, it sounds amazing, but I’m trying to lower my expectations as much as possible in hopes of a pleasant surprise. Years ago, I went with him and his brother to Vegas on my birthday, planning on having one of those epic “I’m 21 in Vegas” adventures, which turned into a three days of watching boys gamble in a city I know nothing about, while they angrily ask me “Well, what do you want to do?” and I would respond with sighing and crying, no answer.

This time, I know what to expect, so hopefully will not deal with the disappointment of, unless you are with a group of fun people that can be fun just walking around and looking at stuff OR you have a lot of money, Vegas isn’t that great.

The views from the top will be worth it.

This is so cool.

The Young Veins - Funnel of Love

• Have only made personal outbound phone calls to three different people in the last month: my boyfriend, friend and mother
• Partied with someone’s mom and an uncle on Saturday. Actually I just watched them get drunk while I ate lobster.
• Patrick and I have been outnumbered by cats. Cats just show up. We’re going to neuter the latest one, but I’m not going to force him to stay here. (That’s what she said.) His name is Pigeon and he likes water sports.

Made a new mixtape on 8track. It’s the music I sulk to.

Music to melt and cry and love to

This song is probably the best one on it.

Leopoldo Sanchez Labastida ‘POLO’ - El Ultimo Beso

So about that bungee jumping…

It started with an hour drive to Asuza at about 5:30 in the morning. We wanted to make sure we got there on time. When we got there, we filled out waivers with the rest of the large group of people jumping that day and promised we had no medical ailments they needed to be aware of. I mean, I did dislocate my shoulder on New Years Day, but the doctor never said I couldn’t go bungee jumping. It had been four months and I figured my worries regarding it were only a result of me being too chickenshit to jump off a bridge. I thought I should be more concerned with having a heart attack or barfing all over myself.

After that, we were publicly weighed. I was the third fattest girl there. Larger people naturally do not bungee jump, or at least they don’t hike the five miles to the bridge you jump off of. I mean, I’m not that small, but I’m far from Torrid status. Patrick was also among the fattest there.

Our self image was highly damaged, so we got to making fun of people for being like the EXTREME guys from Harold and Kumar and made sure we were the fatties in front during the hike, practically running through the six river crossings, over the rocks and steep crevasses. It actually wasn’t too bad. The river crossings were pretty deep and the current was very strong in places, but we managed to make it through all of them and stay ahead of the group, so that we could rest and catch our breath while the others were ferried across by the jump instructors.

The hike took two hours and once at the bridge, the ladies lined up to pee and we ate our picnic lunch. At that point, we were all soaked up to our chests and freezing. Awkwardly, we all began either trying to change in the small shack containing the bucket and toilet seat they had available or as I did, under an oversized hoodie, only occasionally flashing some PG-13 nudity. The instructors all gave us the run down of jump variations and safety warnings with plenty of miming, so we all understood.

After all that stuff, the jumping began. One by one, people began hurling themselves off the bridge. When they were reeled back in, every single one of these assholes said it was the best thing they ever did. Patrick went his three times in a row and if you are curious, I have some videos and photos uploaded here. If anything, they are worth looking at for the scenery. It was gorgeous there and I’d brave the hike again to go back, if my calves ever heal from this last one.

When it was my turn to go, towards the end of the thing, because I’m a procrastinator, not because I was afraid I’d barf all over or my arm would fall out of it’s socket, I climbed over the rail and stepped on the platform. It was the end of the day and would soon be getting dark, so the instructor very, very quickly did the countdown and I flung myself backwards.

In the first few milliseconds, I felt a weird flatness underneath my back, because at this point I was pretty much horizontal to the ground, but hadn’t actually felt the falling sensation yet. And then, within the same second or two of leaping, I felt my shoulder pop. As in, my humerus was doing it’s thang, and just wasn’t quite ready to fall with the rest of the bones, including it’s buddy scapula. I realized this with a verbal “fuuuck…” and then realized I was falling with a “oh shiiiiit!” and THEN I realized I was slowing, fixin’ to be very quickly propelled and then bounced for a while and pretty much just exploded with obscenities and “ouch”.

Everyone said their jumps just didn’t last long enough, over too quickly to realize what was going on. I can honestly say, I felt like I was bouncing there for about five minutes. Every time I thought maybe it was done and I could be stationary, hook myself back up to the human fishing pole and be taken back up to deal with my newfound drama, I would bounce 20 or 30 feet a few more times. Finally, I found myself slowly wound up to the bridge. When I very calmly (for real, I’m a pro) told them what was wrong, I was rushed off to the forbidden storage shed the owner kept the equipment in.

Now, let me explain something, because this post isn’t nearly long enough and I want to continue to elaborate on some mundane this and that. The bungee company I jumped with is in no way at fault here. They wouldn’t have let me jump if they had known of my previous injury. I did not tell them about it, I knew deep down it was a bad idea, but bottom line: my injury, my fault. I actually felt pretty damn guilty about it, because I didn’t want anyone else there thinking it could have possibly been the fault of those who had busted their ass safely getting us to a bridge and then throwing us off it. And the way they handled it was completely with my blessing and I am more than ok with all of it.

Anyway, so I’m in this shed that was sort of set up like an RV. I laid down and got to breathing and trying to relax my muscles, because baby, I’m not leaving this bridge on a helicopter because of a teeny dislocated shoulder. We are gonna set this ourselves. The guy in charge had a lot of personal experience with dislocated shoulders, because when he was younger, like me, he did not understand just how long it takes these things to heal up to normal, that is, if they ever do. He knew how to set it. It took three tries and was not exactly painless. It was actually pretty awful. Last time I had it set, I was fully and totally drugged. This time I was drugged on adrenalin, which helped I think, but still was one of the more excruciating feelings I’ve ever had.

Anyway, he fixed it, slinged it and disappeared. We went back to the bridge, because I still had one more jump! One more jump that I was totally giving to Patrick. They were sweet enough to let us do that little exchange and after he was pulled back up to the bridge, we gathered our stuff and started our trek back home. We figured the bungee dudes would catch up with us, seeing how I was crippled and slow, but no. We even passed some people on the trail. Know why? Because I’m badass. I am a beast, I feel no pain, I sprint across raging rivers like some kind of fast, sprinting bear.

Today one of the bungee dudes called me to make sure we didn’t end up down the river. I apologized about a billion times and told him I wanted to come back eventually when I’m thoroughly healed and try it again. I meant that. I really do. I’m the only one out of all the people there who didn’t like my jump.

But you know what? At least I didn’t barf all over myself.

I think I’ve alienated and pushed away just about everyone I know besides my live-in mang and my cats. Right now I don’t even think the beagle wants to have much to do with me… just a couple weeks ago, he tried to runnoft with another family. An upper-middle class one that has both a patio and a yard. 

If I were a less smug and self-satisfied person, I would think this was my fault. I just don’t have the energy to upkeep friendships with outgoing people in their 20’s. And anyone over the age of let’s say… 32, is gross. I mean, we may like each other’s status updates, but is that the kind of substance we once knew? Of course you like what I have to say, I’m witty and charming in text. 

It’s interesting, because Latruck went through this exact same phase last year. He was moody and judgmental and I couldn’t understand it. Of course, last year at this time I was unemployed and spending my days asleep and my nights up late watching or reading about Lost. I don’t know why he couldn’t find it in himself to respect my gallant lifestyle or the lifestyles of our friends. I’ll throw them under the bus later, this is me time. 

We get along splendidly now that I hate my daily tasks and adult obligations as much as he does, but I don’t think anyone else does. It’s my fault for befriending those without these certain adult sensibilities and being entirely unpleasant about it whenever I get the chance.

Now, as for the others. Those of mine who bought the rocks they are rocking and take pride in strong, independent, Beyonce-like mantras… are single ladies. It makes it tough to relate and I’m an awful wing-man. I thought I was good, but no. A month or two ago I went for a girls night out and we had a blast. But I guess I upset one of the sweet hot dudes we were courting by telling him he is “technically a rapist” and making it awkward at Denny’s when I seriously expressed my concern for the bearded one’s pillpopping habit and then gave him a couple Norcos for the ride home. We’ve gone on more GNO’s since then, but I feel like the magic is gone. It’s like, in order to be fun and enjoy it, I have to drink until my organs fail. But after my organs fail, then what? Who goes out on a Wednesday, you freaks? I have to work at 6 tomorrow…

So this weekend will be boyfriend-centric. Friday I’m going to watch him and his siblings get his mom drunk enough to love them and on Sunday… wait for it…

BUNGEE JUMPING!

I tried to find a picture of people throwing up on themselves, but couldn’t find one. How adorable is this dog? He’s wearing camo!

I am 99.99% sure that I will barf all over myself. We have to get there at 7:30 in the morning. It’s a five mile hike to the Bridge to Nowhere and then I’m going to jump twice (you know, if nothing -happens- during the first jump) and Matreck is going to go three times. Covered in vomit, we will hike the five miles back. It’ll be good. I’m going to wear an unflattering harness that makes my thighs look fat. And sweet, stomach bile. Basically I’m going to fast the night before, make sure my stomach, bowels and bladder are empty… sort of like preparing for a surgery or a porno and then I’m going to jump off a bridge. 

In case this gets googled: Gparted will immediately crash upon opening all damn day and will finally work the way you want when you remove the USB drive you are booting it from first. Just try it. Serious.

11 year old me who documents everything I do is fighting 23 year old me who is too lazy for status updates, let alone legitimate self-obsessed prose and future 30 or 40 something year old me who doesn’t want my laundry (dirty OR clean) touched by the dirty hands of the internet.

So lately I’ve been working a lot. So much that I’ve had to miss all the doctors appointments that I was supposed to go to in order to get my emergency room worthy blood pressure under control. For some reason doctors can never take care of business in one or two appointments, even if you stress that you basically only need to do what it takes not to die for a few months until you get laid off, they want you to come back over and over, and only during work hours. My work hours happen to be 6-6.

Well, whatever.

You know what else? I was watching Man v. Food and he was in Sacramento. I dated someone in Sacramento for a while and spent plenty of time in there. I had some really good food, even some famous food, but none of the places Adam Richman visited. I mean, I used to think my prior relationship had enough merit to make it a somewhat pleasant memory, now that this has happened, I’m not sure that it is.

Life can be so disappointing.

Hurray For The Riff Raff - Fly Away

I was going to skip on over here and write lengthy paragraphs about how I’m battling the usual discontent and self-consciousness at work, feeling like failing and my melancholy boyfriend and home life, then quickly contrasting that with the fun and interesting “other” life I’ve been enjoying (including a crazy fun trip to the Madonna Inn with a personal hero.

However, I was distracted by reading a celebrity gossip blog, updating the version of Ubuntu on my netbook and my space bar is broken.

Maybe next time?

Caitlin Rose - Sinful Wishing Well

I need to stop falling back on my favorite vices as a way of spitting the Universe in the eye. Go hard or go home, one way or the other.

It has been a beautiful month. I need to write it down if I ever get a moment.

On Sunday I dragged Patrick and Chuck down to the Reptile Super Show with me, which we were pleasantly surprised to find out, was part of a larger all around Pet Expo, including a cage full of weiner dogs, some llamas, rattle snakes and so many koi.

I picked up a few new friends for my home space, but I haven’t named them yet. Typically I name pets after either troubled teen celebrities, rappers or characters in Fellini films, but I’m not really sure what I’m going to do this time.