A Terrible Tragedy...

A dear friend of mine, who you might have passed in your travels through blogland, lost his five year old son in an accident. I am heartsick and cannot imagine the pain he is going through right now. NYC Watchdog is a great blogfriend who is always willing to give his time to anyone who needs it. He's a terrific person who is going through such an extremely agonizing time. If you can take a moment to stop by his page and give him some words of strength during this trying time, I would appreciate it. There are no strangers, only friends you have yet to meet...so don't worry if you don't know him. He can use all the love he can get right now.

Also, Avitable has set up a Paypal donation site for the Watchdog. We are taking $5.00 donations right now to defray the costs of the funeral and other expenses he may have during this time. If you would like donate, click the picture and it will take you directly to the donation site, or just go to Avitable's page and you may donate through there.

Don't feel obligated to donate if you can't. But, at very least, please leave him some words so that he can see the love and support he has from the best people in the world...the bloggers. If you are a religious person, please pray for his strength to get through this. If you are a spiritual person, please send good vibes to his son that he may rest in peace. If you are neither of those, just recognize how much this sucks and please, leave a kind word at his site.

I don't even know what else to say. Words don't do this tragedy justice.

I will leave this post here for a week. Thanks for listening.

Zzzzzzzz is for Zoo...

and is also for...Zomebody needz to help me zleep!

You heard of Sleepless in Seattle?

I am Tired in Tampa.

It is 5 am and I haven't closed my eyes yet. I got off of work at 1am and simply have not had the ability to fall asleep. My head is buzzzzzzzzing (onomatopoeia, baby) and the sound of my own breathing is keeping me awake. Usually a good orgasm will knock me the hell out. Alas, my husband, Gorgeous in Georgia (appreciate the alliteration, bitches) is not home. I also fear that if I try to self-induce, my hand will likely fall asleep on me. I will be rejected by my own vibrator and the batteries will probably run out way before I do.

That is not good for ones self-esteem.

I called my husband 10 minutes ago for a suggestion.

"Try and get some sleep," he says.

Holy Shit! Yeah! Thanks! Why didn't I think of that?!?!?

I have a very hot date with an extremely handsome 11 year old tomorrow for the zoo. The journey begins at 9am...a mere 4 hours from now. I am one tired assed bitch who is going to be a very grumpy girl in a few hours when I have to wake up for the zoo. Matter of fact, they should probably stick ME in a cage.

So, let me have it, Peanut Gallery. How do you make yourself fall asleep when it is being as elusive as Osama Bin Laden?

I have a question...

Moms and Dads...this one is for you. Or, if you were ever a kid, I suppose you can answer this too. Hell, anyone can answer.

How do you manage when you take your kid of the opposite sex along with you for a day out or shopping excursion...and you have to go to the bathroom? I know for little ones who are with their moms, they can come into the bathroom with you. For dads, I guess it is okay with your sons...but what about your daughters?

And further? What do you do when your kid is about 9 through 12? You know, old enough to have a grasp of who has what and where? I had to use the bathroom today at McDonalds (yes, the Princess was slumming). I was about to get a major league shop on and the bladder must be emptied so that I can get into shop mode properly.

Anyway, I had my 11 year old son with me. He can't come into the ladies room. He is too old and besides, he would curse me out from here to next week if I tried to bring him in. So, I had him sit at the closest table to the bathroom door. I panicked the entire time I was in the bathroom. I don't even think I wiped properly because I was so freaked out leaving him alone there. I even called his name twice from the bathroom, which I KNOW embarassed the fuck out of the child.

"Can you NOT do that again,?" he asks.

"What did I do?"

"You were screaming my name from the bathroom."

"I just wanted to make sure you were safe!"

"Mom, if something was wrong, I would have yelled for you. You don't have to yell my name while you are going to the bathroom. That is sort of gross anyway."

"What's gross about it?"

"Duh, Mom! You're peeing and yelling my name?"

Hm. Point taken.

"Okay then...what would YOU suggest I do next time," I ask him.

"Simple," he says. "Don't take me shopping ever again."

Typical man.

I dont know how to quit you...

Fucking job.

I tried to put in my 30 day notice yesterday. I am just overall sick of the petty bullshit that goes on there. I thought my last job was petty? LAWD was I mistaken. At least I know that the girls at that job genuinely loved one another. We just fought like sisters do and then, made up or had some event happen that brought us all back together.

These bitches? These bitches are LETHAL! A little fishy like me is in a very small pool of very large sharks. They would sell out their own mother for some overtime and shit, don't you TRY to pick up one of their assignments! You will meet brutal consequence.

I'm doing my thing, you know? I am a happy puppy most of the time, wagging my fat ass cute tail around and yip yipping, happy to nip at the heels of the big dogs...get my learn on, you know?

No. I get swatted in the snout with newspaper and my wet little puppy nose pushed down into a big pile of poop and told "NO! BAD NURSE! NO!"

Wtf?

It seems that the more eager you are to learn a thing or two about a thing or two, the more threatened these bitches become. I latched onto the teet of one kind nurse, a little younger than I am but SO freaking smart! She's been doing long term care forever and knows how to do EVERYTHING! I always make her show me whatever she is doing. Jamie! Show me this! Jamie! Read my report, is it right? Jamie! Did I write up these orders correctly?

And she answers every single one of my questions without hesitation.

The problem? Administration can't stand her. Why? Cause she doesn't take shit from the older nurses. Normally, I wouldn't either, but I can't be left alone in this big sea of sharks, floatin' along on a piece of driftwood. I wouldn't last a day. It's not that I am not confident in my ability to be a nurse. I have never worked in long term care. I have been in dermatology and surgery since the day I walked out of nursing school. Neither of these skills are particularly helpful with what I do now. Okay, so the derm experience can help me to determine what sort of rash is on the ass of some resident. I can also tell which one of my CNA's have herpes or which of my residents have skin cancers. Would they listen to me anyway? Probably not. We don't take a shit in this place without a doctors order.

Back to my point. I went to the DON's (Director of Nursing) office to tell her I was out of here. However, I didn't want to burn a bridge, so I told her it was because they denied me my insurance. (Which they did, said I didn't have enough hours to qualify) Lucky me. It was a great excuse that wouldn't leave a bad taste in anyones mouth.

Apparently, they like me. They got on the phone with corporate and got me my full time health insurance benefits. Fuck. So, now I am stuck again, for awhile, in a sea of great whites and sting rays. Probably a few sperm whales too.

I'll wait a few months and then quit the right way...by telling them they all suck and to eat my fat ass.

That should get me out the door...or a raise.

Shake it up, Baby.

Had a seizure at work yesterday.

One that came complete with loss of bladder retention. Sweet. Nothing like peeing all over your boss to say "I care". I felt this one coming on, so I told the bitch that I work for that I was going to need an ambulance. She thought I was trying to get out of work.

Stop, drop and roll, Bitch. How ya like me now?

I don't remember much, other than the paramedics arriving and sticking me with more holes than my husband normally does. I love when they try to rouse you with painful stimuli. I can't respond, fuckers, that doesn't mean it doesn't HURT!

Assholes.

Shortly after peeing myself, I was up on the stretcher being carted away to the hospital. I work in a medical facility. You think they would know how to care for someone having a seizure? Ahem, this is WHY I told them to call an ambulance. Ain't no way I was trusting my fat fine ass to their capabilities and concerns. Hell no.

I wake up in time to hear that my blood pressure is a rockin' 198/117. Sweet! That's near combustible! My pulse was at 120 and my fat ass probably would have had a damn heart attack if they didn't shove all that morphine into my arm right away.

Ah, morphine. Breakfast of Champions.

I missed my lab exam today due to having an incredible "feel like I got hit by a truck" kind of headache. That was half my grade. I''ve called my professor three times to let him know what happened.

Is no answer or response a bad thing?

I'm obviously not having a good week...and it's only Monday.

If you have been looking for me...

...I am over HERE for now.

Will be there until my mood changes or the meds kick in.

Smoooooooooches.

Blogging from a laptop...

Wow.


Why did someone not introduce me to this world sooner? I am on my couch, watching Judge Milian from The People's Court deliver her own brand of fiery red justice. Sitting on my couch, next to the hotband (who happens to be home this week) and typing away. What IS this? I love this!


Laptops serve their purpose and I, being a conventional writer, was a bit hardpressed to make the move from the written to the typed word. Although I have been on the internet since 1995, I never made the leap to writing poetry and my little novellas on a computer as I always thought the depth and content were important enough to write out longhand. There is something resilient about pen to paper, something that is more close and personal than just typing letters on the keyboard.

Consider a love letter. Having one typed with a signature on the bottom is not the same as getting a hand written testimony of ones love for you. Radically different although they mean the same. When I write my Grandmonster, Evilyn, I write her using the text program from my computer...only because 1) it's a bit more distant and 2) I can make the text enormous so she can actually read what I have written. However, a letter to my husband would have to be handwritten to show the love, devotion and depth of my words. An email telling someone you love them and cannot live without them isn't nearly as grand.

I remember a man I dated who I met on the internet. Our love was exclusively online until we shoved it, literally, into "real life". We would write very deep, very angst ridden love letters on how our love could not possibly be defined in this computerized medium. We would simply have to meet and let the journey take us from there. Know what? The journey sucked.

Not that we didn't have a good time. We did. However, the man couldn't live up to the mystique he left behind on the computer. It's a hard thing to live up to...and we both couldn't pull it off. It was freaky and wild and amazing for awhile...but there was no substance to it and that is because eventually...it burns out. I recall, however, him writing me a handwritten note. It was just a small note saying that he loved me, with a little artistic embellishment and was scribbled hastily on the back of a receipt. Of everything that I threw away from this relationship...that note was the hardest to give away. I had extraordinary pieces of poetry that he wrote for me. Exquisite long letters of declaration of love...all via email and yet, it was that simple handwritten gesture that was the hardest to dispose of. So I kept it...for many years, despite the relationship being over and a new love (hotband) in my life. Truth be told, I only threw it away recently when I decided that holding on to it was like holding on to a "what could have been/should have been/would have been" and I don't like the feeling.

I am not big on memories and keepsakes. Everything I need to know about my past is firmly implanted into my brain. I have misty water colored memories (of the way we were...) that I can dredge up at anytime. There are certain things, like baby clothes, first teeth, first locks of hair...etc. that I couldn't bear to part with. But, things from ex boyfriends or husbands? Into the trash. At least in good time anyway. Kept the wedding album from my former husband only to give to my children. That's their history...not necessarily mine.

The only thing I have trouble with?

Photographs. I have photos all over my home from various times of life. They are loose, laying everywhere; in junk drawers, the garage, bathroom cabinets...just about anywhere you look. More than those, you can find literally dozens of undeveloped disposable cameras. I have no idea what is on them. From time to time, I get one developed just to see. They are usually pics I find I can't live without and stick them all over my house with the intention to either blow them up larger for framing or starting the photo album I said I was going to start nearly 17 years ago.

The flow of handwriting has so much more power than the typewritten word. When I see handwriting on the back of a photo, it becomes almost holy to me. So immense and drenched in meaning that I can't bear to part with it. Photos of my children? Never disposed of. It could be a shot of their nostril where the flash accidentally went off while they were examing the camera and still...I could not throw it away. In the back of my mind, throwing that picture away is like throwing a piece of my childs life away. Call it superstitious nonsense...but a feeling of dread washes over me and I can't deny it.

My deepest feelings of love for my husband or children are not transposed easily into the typewritten word. Even if I am typing a letter, I tend to type it in a script font for merely the illusion of a handwritten letter. I mean, telling someone you love them via email is sweet and nice. Telling them you love them in a hand written letter that you took the time, effort and energy to write is something they can keep long after the hard drive drops dead.