I really hope I don't end up having to be here till 2 PM after having been here all night. Day person called @last minute w/no babysitter.

Stress Sucks

Women naturally more susceptible to stress http://ping.fm/6ztQf

My stress levels are extremely high and I've been having bad heart palpitations. I suppose among all the other shit I have to do I'm supposed to wedge in a doctor's appointment. I finally got to sleep about 8 AM this morning and slept till one. Given a few days/nights of adequate rest, the palpitations might stop. But of course I have to work again tonight...and the night after...and the night after. My only nights off are Monday and Wednesday, plus I'm taking this microbiology course. Sometimes I wish for the Death Asteroid to come splatter me.

Happiness is a warm cat in your lap--until said cat farts.

What does it mean when Flavor Flav shows up in your dream wearing a lime green suit?

Playing the penny stocks, dreaming of finding the next Xerox. Will alternative energy source providers be the way? We shall see!

Proof that I'm in hell--the Weather Bug has reported the temperature as 66.6 (Fahrenheit) for the past 6 hours!

Distractability Gets In The Way of Fame

This was my response to a really cool article by Zoe, who has ADHD.

You and I have a lot in common, except my problem is bipolar disorder rather than ADHD. It also makes for difficulty concentrating and I tend to be easily distracted. I've also worked very hard on not being late for appointments and for me that is a huge triumph. And I would also like to be rich and famous in spite of myself. I hope we win the lottery! That might not make us famous, but at least we'll be rich! ;-)

ADHD: incurable? Yes. Manageable? Probably.Improvements? Definitely. | ADHD from A to Zoë http://ping.fm/oEd50

Queer Duck--he's intellectual. Queer Duck--he's homosexual. Please don't think that he's perverse, he's the patient's favorite male nurse!

Love these Annie's Sour Cream & Onion Bunnies--too much!

Well crap...suppose I'd best get going to see the parents. It's my mother's birthday. I just feel unmotivated to drive 25 miles right now.

Queer Duck http://ping.fm/kL2pD

Stomach growling--taking on a life of its own. Time for dinner soon, I think.

Chivalry, sexism, and Dr. Laura

This was my response to a post on one of my favorite blogs, The Sexist.

The best thing I've ever seen with "Dr. Laura" is the Queer Duck episode wherein she takes the place of the Twilight Gremlin on the plane wing. That truly embodies the essence of Dr. Laura.
Each person is responsible for his or her own conduct on his or her own behalf. Dignity is something to be determined and maintained by the individual for their own sake, not for the benefit of others. Certainly feminine dignity is the responsibility of the woman on behalf of herself, not on behalf of the patriarchy. Chivalry is a sexist concept anyway. It assumes that women are too weak and stupid to take care of or think for ourselves. This is opposed to courtesy, which is a concept that should apply to all of us. Opening the door for someone is a courtesy, for instance. One person does it as a kindness for another. But we women should not be standing around waiting for men to open doors for us, or do anything else for us either. We need to be doing what needs to be done for ourselves. Sure, Prince Charming may show up sometime. But in my experience, he's likely to be gay! ;-)

Just remembered that nonsense from the good ole Satanic Panic daze about Kiss standing for "Kings in Satan's Service." What imagination!

I suppose it's cheesy, but I love this Dr. Pepper ad with Kiss and Mini Kiss.

Sorry if some of my links ended up repeating themselves. You have to jump through freaking hoops to log into the stupid Huffington Post!

Miley Cyrus Not Trying to be Slutty but Succeeding

Miley Cyrus: 'I'm Not Trying To Be Slutty' http://ping.fm/N34kz

She says as she goes onstage wearing this and a whole department store worth of makeup. Where the hell are this girl's parents? I would be telling her to put on a damn skirt or pair of pants with this get-up! And lest anyone think I have a double standard in my thinking, if I had a son who wore his pants down around his thighs so his boxer-clad ass was hanging out, I'd be telling him to pull them up! Fortunately my son always had the sense to wear real pants.
Seriously, I would feel naked wearing the Miley get-up on stage. This is only appropriate for the swimming pool. So unless she's performing at a pool party, this outfit is completely inappropriate.

Yes, if she was performing at a pool party or beach party, what she's wearing is acceptable. Otherwise, were I her mother, I would insist that she put on a skirt, a decent pair of shorts (not skin-tight camel toe inducing ones) or a pair of pants. I would like to know where this girl's parents are. I would not allow my seventeen year old daughter to perform looking like a go-go dancer.
Before anyone accuses me of a double standard, I would hold my son to the same standards. Only boys are usually not encouraged to be sexpots in this society.
Miley is too young to know it but she could be a very positive role model for girls by showing that they do not have to fall into the trap of thinking they need to put themselves on display as sex objects. It is perfectly possible to be attractive and appealing without wearing clothing that is too revealing or suggestive. I'm not much for "pop tarts" in general, but I would say that from what I recall, Hillary Duff never did the "sexpot" thing. I would much rather have a daughter or granddaughter admiring someone like her than trying to emulate what Miley is becoming.
Where is Dad in all this? She's still young enough that he could tell her to put on some actual clothes when she performs. As I said, that outfit is appropriate--if she's performing at a beach party. Otherwise, no. Her father doesn't seem like he gives a rat's patoot that his daughter is performing dressed like a go-go dancer. I think he may be living vicariously through her since his spotlight dwindled years ago.

Creepiosity: A Hilarious Guide To The Unintentionally Creepy http://ping.fm/SKjaU

Don Rickles And Ozzy Osbourne: A Match Made In Heaven (VIDEO) http://ping.fm/q4c1F

Deer Smooches Cat In Unlikely Love Fest (VIDEO) http://ping.fm/hSRjL

Would never get a caricature drawing done. For some reason they always make me look old, fat, and frumpy even though I'm youthful and lovely

Street Portraits Gone Wrong: The Funniest Caricature Drawings Ever (PICTURES) http://ping.fm/8Xhuc

FTC launches credit report band ads http://ping.fm/2QT8D

Ugh--it's hot to the point of puke. I really don't like the heat very well. If that makes me a curmudgeon, so be it. I already was one!

Lafayette is freaking out, rolling around and attacking my scrub top while making trilling sounds-and he hasn't even had catnip! What gives?

Is the FreeCreditReport.com Band Breaking Up? - MJwycha - Open Salon http://ping.fm/niiqQ

Fathers Day

I was touched by the words and photo with this post about fathers and wanted to make mention about some of the fathers in my life, both past and present.

My father is still alive. He is 74 years old. He had a major hemorrhagic stroke 6 years ago on June 6. We are sure he has had other smaller strokes since then because his cognitive function has declined. In the beautiful photo in the post that I have linked to there is a 78 year old man holding his great grandson. I doubt that my father will be alive when his great grandchildren are born. My son is 20 and is not currently involved, nor is he in any hurry to have children. 

My great grandfathers had all died before I was born. I got to know two great grandmothers, one on my mother's side and one on my father's. One of my paternal great grandfathers was a lieutenant in the Czar's army before coming to the United States, where he would work as a butcher. During the Depression he would give people meat and tell them to pay him back when they could. According to my father, every single one of them made good.

One of my maternal great grandfathers was a farmer in upstate New York. He ended up developing septicemia after gouging his arm on a nail, and this killed him. 

My paternal grandfather was a veterinarian, working primarily with large animals. He worked for many of the racetracks around the New York area. He is the grandfather that I knew best. He died when I was twelve from a heart attack. He was 64. He had scarlet fever in childhood, which weakened his heart at an early age.

I did not know my maternal grandfather well. I mostly remember him sending me things from his vacation home in Florida, which would become his permanent home in the last years of his life. He sent me shark's teeth and other such things. He was somewhat estranged from his own children and thus not very close to his grandchildren either. He left my grandmother for another woman while my mother and aunt were still in high school. My grandmother had a nervous breakdown, and so the household tasks fell to my mother, who was the eldest. My aunt rebelled and ran wild. She recalls my mother locking her in her room and my aunt sneaked out the window to go driving around with her boyfriend.

My father has a good soul but a propensity for driving other people crazy with his obsessiveness. I always felt like I could never do well enough to please him. The truth is that nobody, including himself, can ever do well enough. Unlike me, he would not, and at this point probably cannot, acknowledge that he has a psychiatric issue: obsessive-compulsive disorder. My father used to come into my house unannounced and start picking things up and throwing things out. The one positive to the stroke, I'm sorry to say, is he can't just come over any more. I hated when he would do this and I would end up screaming at him. This was also in the days before I knew I was bipolar and began taking Lithium, so I would really lose it. I have some fond memories of my father, but this is not one of them.

My ex husband is creating a huge chasm between himself and our son by his behavior. I have warned him that his actions are having negative consequences on his relationship with his son, but he won't listen. My ex husband quit his job near to 8 years ago now. I told him not to quit unless he had another job, but he did. He hasn't worked since then. For a while he was helping his aunt and uncle in Montana and then he came back here. He had noplace to live. He asked if he could stay in the spare room "for a couple of months." This was back in December. He is due to go back to Montana in July because we can no longer tolerate his presence. Our son at this point refers to his father as "a whacko," and says that when he has kids he doesn't think he wants them to meet their grandfather. He is ashamed of the fact that his father really hasn't worked in 8 years. He says that when he was in high school and people asked what his parents did, he would say "my mother works night shift at a nursing home." If they pursued and asked, "what does your father do?" he would say "he work(ed) at the newspaper," not enunciating the "ed" part of "worked" clearly. The thing is, we have tried to get him to go into counseling, and if he lifted a finger to help around the house it would be different. He doesn't. And while I may be Oscar Madison's spiritual daughter, this man is more than a slob, he is the most socially inappropriate individual you could ever imagine: scratching, farting, belching, spitting...

I can't wait till he leaves. And I did warn him that unless he cleaned up his act, his relationship with his son would suffer.

My brother never had any kids, but I feel the need to mention him. Because of him, there are people whose kids are still in this world with them. He is a firefighter/paramedic and he has saved a lot of lives. So in a sense when we celebrate father's day, we should give thanks to those people who allow fathers to have more time with their kids--whether those people are fathers or not.

Hopefully your relationships with your fathers are more good than bad, or if not, hopefully there has been a decent surrogate father figure in your life. If neither of these are true, then I salute you for having had to parent yourself. You did a better job than you could imagine, I'll wager.

Cheers.

Blooming Psycho's Funhouse: Self Injury Not Necessarily Evidence of Suicide Attempt http://ping.fm/jsUsm

Self Injury Not Necessarily Evidence of Suicide Attempt

Rather than attempting to end their lives, people who self-harm are surviving and managing intolerable and emotionally painful lives.  They don’t necessarily want to die, nor do they often see happiness as attainable.  They just want to stop feeling miserable.

When someone experiences the numbness of repeated trauma, the tissue damage, physical pain and blood from injuring yourself can be a reminder of life. Behaviors such as burning and cutting help to control emotion and obtain help from an indifferent or punishing environment.
The difference that emerges between suicide attempts and self-injury is in intention and lethality. In one study non-suicidal acts of self-harm were reported as intended to express anger, punish oneself, generate normal feelings and distract oneself.  In contrast, the most often reported intention of suicide attempts was to make others better off.
Self-injury, therefore, can be seen as inadequate solutions to overwhelming, intensely painful emotion.  On the other hand, suicide attempts include self-injurious acts or acts with potential for harm (for example, putting a gun in your mouth) that have an explicit or inferred intent to die as a result of the act.

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/dbt/2010/06/is-it-a-suicide-attempt-or-self-injury/

This was my response to the post:

I started self-injuring as a teenager. It is under control at this point (I am now 45) but the urge still rises when things go really wrong. I have never really dealt with the underlying issues that caused this behavior to begin. Compassionate, effective mental health assistance is still unattainable for many of us. The county facilities need to serve the more critically ill among us, and private treatment is not affordable for many of us who are managing to hold jobs but still live in marginalized circumstances.
I was not trying to kill myself when I was put in the hospital at 16 for a suicide attempt and humiliated and treated as less than human by most of the so called "professionals" there. I was dubbed a "hysterical neurotic" by the clown of a psychiatrist who "treated" me. Fortunately when my son started having problems with depression he was treated in a compassionate fashion and thus has been willing to seek help. I think it is no surprise, however, that many older people with mental health issues are reluctant to seek help (providing we could even afford it) given the way we have been treated when we did so in the past.

Over 40? Digestive system beginning to suck? Avoid the Hormel hot & spicy chili, or plan on plenty of visits to the Porcelain Altar!

An Ode to Street Harassers: “Fuck You, So Much” - The Sexist - Washington City Paper http://ping.fm/01Dtw

D.C.’s Street Harassment Confrontation Gap - The Sexist - Washington City Paper http://ping.fm/bAv0D

Folks, I found a cure for insomnia! I forced myself to watch Twilight. Can anyone say "duller than dirt?" How do people stay awake thru it?

I'm trying to convince my kitten (more of a teenage cat, I think) Lafayette to do my homework for me, but he isn't stepping up to the task.

Mental Illness: The Good Side!

This was a response to an article on Cracked, a 'zine which takes otherwise horrific topics and makes them fun.

This explains a lot about religion, and also convinces me that I should go down in history as amazing. I have OCD, bipolar disorder (which contributes to insane levels of creativity during the hypomanic phase,) borderline personality disorder (works great for acting, which, unfortunately, I haven't been able to do in about 20 years due to my schedule at work,) and panic disorder. Okay, I haven't figured out any benefit to the panic disorder, but the others actually have a positive side. Now start worshiping my mad genius. 

 

I didn't mention this in my comment, but the down side to all of these disorders is that they tend to make me easily distracted from what's really important, so sometimes I have trouble completing tasks, especially if I'm not really interested in them. I'm having a hell of a time with this damn microbiology course, for instance. The subject matter is interesting, but I hate the way the class is set up. I don't do well with hard deadlines. Its stressing me out big time.