Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Would the real blogger please stand up?

What's that old saying... those that can, do, those that can't, teach?

I never got that saying, but it's wrong. For one, those that "can't" check their blog links, not teach.

At least, I do, when I "can't" do other stuff. Or won't. Or don't want to. However that works.

I realized I'd screwed up the link to my friend Katy's blog, so that when you clicked on her blog link, what you got was this. Which, no offense or harm meant to the author--who incidentally isn't named Katy, but does share her current state of residence as well as blog title, if not URL--is clearly ersatz blog. Or at least, not Katy's.

Mea culpa, for the false advertising. May I be stocked and pilloried (don't worry, I'm looking for another nursing job, and I'm pretty sure "stocking and pillioring" comes standard as an unadvertised "benefit" of the job, like vacation you can only get if the planets align in a cetrain fashion on the eve of some Celtic holiday no one's heard about and you have superhuman power and never succumb to illness once in fifty years).

So now I saw, go forth and click on the real, genuine article and learn more about my fabulous friend, who is incidentally, baking vegan pumpkin muffins. Or bread. Or something, because it's Halloween here in the U.S.

Meanwhile, I will try to ignore the ominous right sided twinge which last time spelled "hospitalization," and to some degree, and probably less successfully, ignore the dog, who has made it plain since yesterday that, "Your place sucks, man. I want to go where there's something cool to do."

Good tidings to everyone, and if bets are being placed on how long it takes me to wind up in the hospital with peritonitis, let me know, because it might be kind of fun to be the subject of a cash pot.

Monday, October 30, 2006

the secret to life

I have no earthly idea what the secret to life might be.

However, I can attest to the positive powers of a stout beer and deli potato salad when your life feels like a sack of shit.


Yes, indeed, when you finish the beer and digest that mayonnaise filled delight called potato salad, the sack of shit is still there, as smelly and unwanted as ever, but you find that you care less when your belly is full of malt-and-starch-filled goodness.

And caring less about what happens to you might actually be good for you, on occasion.

Or something.

The end.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

krusty.

Man, do you ever have one of those shit days, that's of the "crappage" variety?

"Crappage"
is my portmanteau of "crap" and "garbage." See: crappage. And it means roughly the same thing, as in crap and garbage, except it's a portmanteau, so you don't have to use the conjunctions. See?! Portmanteau. My new word for when I crush the 5th grade spelling bee.

Use it. Appropriate it. Love it. Crappage.

Any way, driving home from my parents home (at which I was told, "dear girl, you haven't put on a pound of weight since you came home!" and plied with cookies, cakes and icecream of all sorts of things before being told "you could waste away to nothing and die this way, you know!) Yeah, or I could go into DKA need an insulin drip, mom, so stop trying to cram Kitkats and chocolate milk down my throat at the same time.

I"m working on getting another nursing job and just utterly bummed about this prospect. All the attendant stress is already piling up on me and making me unable to sleep and I haven't even gotten a call back. I don't want the pain! I don't! NO god! NO!

And yet, here I, deciding between telemetry prn and a hardcore ICU internship. Do I really want to do this shit? Take even more unsable, more likely to code on my ass patients?

I don't know. Sword of Damocles, just get on with it and kill me, please. then I am no longer liable for my own decision making processes. maybe just for the time being I'll make life decisions based on some postmodern generator of decision making out there on the web. I'm sure there has to be one, right?

Right now, I'm gonna knit and eat Doritos and try to remember why it was I thought I would make a good, wonderful, caring nurse. And also, why it was that I somehow didn't realize that nursing was going to turn me into a 90 lb stick with screwed up intenstines.

On top of that, I *really* think my diverticuli are acting up again--have some right sided pain again that is intermittently pretty nasty.

Maybe something exciting will happen, like I'l perf my bowel and go the MICU or SICU and be all "life or death" for a couple of days.

or maybe I'l just end up on some dumpy surgical ward, NPO, taking antibiotics which make me shit and feel hungover, until my WBC count goes down.

I love this disease!


Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Fantasy Island

Well, no one has killed our resident drummer yet, although I'm surprised he hasn't sustained some brain damage from his crappy percussion skills. (Or maybe he has, and that's why he no longer recognizes that his behavior is socially retarded at best.)

Sigh. Sometimes it's too bad vigilante justice is, for the most part, illegal.

I wish there was a way to pipe recordings of all of Hegel's works into his apartment, or something, especially in the middle of the night.

No wait, scratch that.

Bilateral amputations at the metacarpals. Without anaesthesia.

That'd do the trick.

Still seething with rage, I'm off to nibble at food and try to hone my death ray glare.

Monday, October 23, 2006

The Drummer Must Die

Later, when I'm more lucid: Why Columbia South Carolina Should Be On Your List of Places Never to Visit.

For now: Have you ever wished, in a very uncharitable, slightly psychopathic way, that someone would kill your neighbor (wait! maybe it is what a good Christian would do, if you count the Jesus Kicking The Money-Changers Collective Ass scene as ethically instructive gospel reading, which I do, for one.)

I can now say I regularly fantasize that someone, anyone comes up to my stupid, annoying, talentless drum-playing neighbor and pops a cap in him while he plays his infantile rhythms over and over and over again.

Or destroys his drum set. Or blows up his garage. Then gives me a tranquilizer, so I can go back to sleep, like I was before the introduction of noodle-head drum playing at random hours of the day and evening.

Later, on the six o'clock news, we could watch Our Hero walking away from his pyrotechnical display of revenge in classic slow-mo B-movie style.

Seething with rage, I continue faking an air of calm.



Saturday, October 21, 2006

Putin warns

The above title was my favorite from today's bundle of One Hundred and One Spam Messages My Webserver Failed to Filter.

Mysterious and slightly apocalyptic in feel though the heading was, I was not overcome by enough curiousity to risk opening a SPAM message that would wreck havoc on my hard drive in the form of a computer virus.

Still it has left me wondering, in a very detached Manchurian Candidate meets Postmodern Mad Libs sort of way, what specifically the leader of Russia might wish to caution the rest of the e-mail-using population at large.

Thoughts, ideas, or suggestions, people? A booby prize to the contributer who submits the most provocative follow-up subject header, or can accurately guess the meaning of Putin's engimatic warning. For example: "Gorbachev emits" or "Stalin insinuates" or the equally ridiculously suggestive, "Sniff. Lenin."

Disturbing, where a pedantic mind might lead...

Who's on First?


As usual, Piper's (above) charms resist that of being photographed, which he meets with above petulant and rather offended expression. The eldest of his pack of Westie friends, he is often referred to in their presence as "the Old Man." At the venerable age of ten-and-a-half, he is still spry enough to enjoy a good rough-and-tumble with the youngest of the lot (Miss Heather, see below) but smart enough to know when to go laze around and look winsome enough to be fed treats from the ice box.

To the right, we have Patrick, my mum's Westie, who also appears to have mastered the Art of Looking Put Out. Although he is only two years old, he is an excellent master of disguise and can be easily be mistaken for a much older and chronically cranky dog, especially if he isn't taken for his W-A-L-K in the morning. Rivals the late Steve Irwin in his seemingl boundless enthusiasm for hunting small lizards, even those which appear entirely imagined, a trait which drives his human companions absolutely bonkers.

Also introducing introducing: Heather, aka Bean, aka Hey-you-there-stop-that-right-now aka When-will-you-ever-grow-up?! The newest addition to the Westie family, she lives with my parents and her favorite chew toy, Patrick (see above). She regularly enjoys hassling The Other Westie and the household in general. Aspirations include World Class Digger and inclusion in the WWF (Westie Wrestling Federation) Hall of Fame, both of which have earned her time in the "slammer" (wire kennel).

(Heather wishes to point out that she is rather offended that such a candid snapshot is being published, and that she categorically objects to any photograph which does not show her to her best advantage.)









Friday, October 20, 2006

In Which Jamie Decides to Join Civilization, and Buy a Toaster

My mom and I were having a discussion yesterday about our insomnia and in my usual segue to nothing, I forwarded the idea that I think I'm agoraphobic (I'm becoming a hypochondriac, too but we needn't talk about that at the mo') .

Not a clinically significant kind of agoraphobia, but I suppose it sounds more romantic than "pessimist and misanthropic" which are terms much more apt to accurately describe my Weltenschaung. Or whatever, I didn't take German, and don't feel like going to my Hegel collection and looking up the word.

Today I ran one of my typical random social experiments which has no statistical or scientific merit whatsoever, but still remains to my mind an absolute confirmation of my dislike of most people in the world.

While out running errands I had the misfortune on two separate occasions to happen upon two young women, both of whom blew their auto horns at me and threw insulting glares worthy of Shannon Dougherty (I don't think I spelled that right, but then, I never watched Beverely Hills 90210, either, because I was too busy becoming the frazzled introvert you now know and love an adult). There was no real reason for them to blow their horns; they just thought I was "in the way" and "too slow" apparently, never stopping to ponder that perhaps they needed to a) realize there's a valid reason why a traffic light turns red at a busy four way intersection b) get the hell off their cell phone c) slow down.

Is it just me, or do most youth between the age of sixteen and twenty five even know how to drive with two hands on the steering wheel? I am starting to suspect from random observations that this is a skill fast going the way of operating a manual typewriter and looking up information using a card catalog instead of a websearch.

And don't they show that nasty movie from 1965 or whenever, with all the blood and guts hanging out of a mangled car, a clear testimony as to the Dangers Of Driving Distracted? Or is there some New Driving (like New Age and New Math) Method out there, which expressely forbids driving with both hands on the steering wheel, and instead preaches zealously that one must always be preoccupied with the latest inane bit of Hollywood gossip? No seriously, I'm not being all Officer Safety here, or anything, but I wonder what kind of cosmic crisis would befall American youth were they deprived of their cell phones whilst operating motor vehicles...

And while I'm sounding approximately ninety-two-years-old, let me now gripe about the other thing I hate about Being Anywhere That Is Not My Apartment. Ill behaved children. Screaming is not cute, it is noise pollution. Enough said.

Meanwhile, I'm starting to feel a right sided twinge again, which may be nothing, or may mean another hospitalization (my colon and I are rooting for the "nothing" option).

And I realized, in my many, many moves, I somehow have managed to keep a bread machine, but no toaster. This has lead to my unfortunate Lazy Woman's Experiences With Broiling Bread And Other Products, the products of which, as you can imagine, turned out very smoky and carbon-y. I have thus confirmed, in my unscientific but ironically, highly Pavlovian way, that I need to just get my ass over to Target and buy a friggin' toaster, already.

But not before they ban all annoying people from being in the store at the same time as me.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Goodbye, Mr. Mookie


So, my poor little Mr. Mookie (see above for picture of Mookums in happier times, eg, last week) died this morning.

I went outside on the lanai to say hello to the bunnies this morning and he was actively seizing. Realizing there was probably very little to be done given his advanced age and the severity of the seizures, and as he looked very near death with his agonal breathing pattern, I called at least half a dozen vets to see if I could at least have him euthanized.

Instead of help, however, most clinics said they either didn't have a vet that specializes in rabbits, or that the vet was busy. Possibly worst of all the responses I received was a receptionist telling me that yes, there was a vet on the premises who could see my rabbit, but the vet had refused because "the vets go to lunch at 12 p.m."

"But my bunny is dying!" I protested.

Apparently, certain vets in this town care more about their own gustatory concerns than they do the suffering of an innocent little critter.

Mookie probably would have died en route to the vet any way, but as a health care provider who has more than once gone over 12 hours without eating to provide care for sick people, I found this policy of "all sickness and death must wait until after lunch" morally offensive, especially since I had to watch my cute little bunny die a painful death and was powerless to give him palliative care. (My first, foolish thought when I saw him was, "Oh my god! Where's the morphine? He needs comfort care!")

In fact, by the time I found a vet who would see him (despite it being lunch hour, for God's sake), he had died. I hung up the phone, hurried outside to scoop him up in a towel, only to find him very still and lifeless, having died in the moments it had taken me to finally find a vet who would see him.

All I could do was pet him and say how very sorry I was that he had to go that way.

At any rate, as he was a shelter-rescue, I can only comfort myself by thinking that his last few months were spent in relative comfort and happiness, with a little bunny friend. And now, maybe, he is in bunny heaven, no longer in pain, and eating as many bananas--his paws down favorite--as he wanted without giving himself a bad case of GI upset.

Goodbye, Mr. Mookie. Sweet old soul that you are, I will miss you.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Friday Night Plights

Why is it that the moment I start doing something useful (well, theoretically useful, any way) like studying antiarrhythmics and cardiac anatomy and physiology, some idiot in my building decides now would be a perfect time to listen to trash Top 40!

I have had to endure listening to echo-y, through-the-walls versions of songs by 1) Kelly Clarkson and now 2) Jewel.

I mean, really, people, I wouldn't mind so much if you were listening to something good, like Alexi Murdoch or Gillian Welch, but Jewel?! I ask you, now!?

It really does feel like a glorified college campus dorm around here on weekends. Hark! Behold the Din of the Inane: a.k.a The Stupid Girl Nextdoor Babbling on Her Cellphone Incessantly, The Blaring Crappy Top 40 Music, the Random Shrieking and Laughing. O tempora! O mores!

And then there's Jamie, of course, the old academic stick-in-the-mud, plowing through ACLS protocol and trying to memorize Starling's Laws, wishing I didn't live around twenty-somethings who, if queried, would probably think that Pravda was some rip-off Italian fashion designer.

I also spent my day baking (buttermilk and oatmeal bread, and cinammon, baked apple, cranberry, raisin bread). I even made some baked apples (out of some 99 cents/lb rip off apples that were firm yet bizarrely mealy once you bit into them). I also did laundry and gave the dog a bath.

Party on, Wayne. Party on, Garth.




Thursday, October 12, 2006

Party Hearty!

Ever lived in a place where random twenty-somethings who show up randomly on your door stop don't happen to be Jehovah's Witnesses?

Judging from their appearances--all Ralph Lauren polo shirts, baggy jeans, flip flops and that self-consciously styled hair--they belonged to some Greek fraternity and probably thought I was That One Chic They Met Last Night Outside at the 7-11.

1) No, I'm not a chic. 2) I'm especially not that chic. 3) There's no party here 4) I don't have a keg of beer stashed in my laundry room, although sometimes living in Retro College Dormland makes me feel like I should.

Any way, I never did figure out what the hell they wanted, because I didn't answer the door. Hey dudes, this isn't Melrose Place; go get your own beer bong!

Non sequitar. Just because I'm bored, I'll list "things I like to eat/drink which may seem weird to the average palate."

1) Buttermilk.
2) Vegemite (by the spoonfuls!)
3) Matza brei
4) boiled, salted chicken livers
5) eel (sushi, not British pub grub style)

New Word of the Day: Insufflation, as in: "The young starlet insufflated large amounts of cocaine during, before, and after, the Oscar party."



Saturday, October 07, 2006

Heroes.

Ten Superpowers I'd Like to Have, or "If I Were a Super Hero."

10. Invisibility. (Kind of like how I felt in jr high school).

9. India. Or, possibly, China. (Hey, they're rising superpowers!)

8. A lot of money. (It's a superpower! Unless you're Russian and post Cold War inflation has rendered your rubles useless. Or American, same difference).

7. Repository of Useless information. (Oh wait, already am one.)

6. Verbal fluency in Latin (see #7). (Just think--I could crash Vatican Councils!)

5. Biblical Whup-Ass, eg the ability to turn enemies into pillars of salt. Now that was when divine wrath was worth something.

4. X-ray vision. Then I wouldn't have to page radiology fifty times only to have them question whether or not I "really need that stat film, like, now, or something."

3. The food-producing thing a la Jesus would be kind of cool, too, as it would likewise negate the need for annoying dietary pages.

4. Mindreading abilities--I'd never have to page a cranky attending over illegible orders again!

3. Understanding Hegel (philosophy majors hear me on this one. Probably no one else does, but we superheroes are a misunderstood lot).

2. Perfect pitch.

1.Bruce Bannon's capacity to become really angry and green. Because green is a scary color. And so is the ability to rip out of all of your clothes and bite through cars.


Jamie's Top Ten Dream Jobs.

10. A professional liason. Because what does a liason do anyway? We're not sure. We guess "liase." But it sounds sexy and mysterious, doesn't it? Not to mention completely nebulous.

9. Writer for the Conan O'Brien Show.

8. High Inquisitor for the newly minted Task Force On Kicking Hospital CEO Ass.

7. Professional knitter.

6. Marathon sleeper.

5. Random Generator of Useless Academic Essays, eg "Lyrical Gangstas: Textual Layering and Meaning of the Word "Bitch" in the Modern Lexicon of Hip Hop and Rap" or "From Saloon to Strip Club: The Socioeconomic Evolution of Modern American Burlesque." (N.B.: I'm not saying I would write these essays. Just think up titles.)

4. Healthcare professional As Seen On T.V. (eg, not a real one).

3. Poet laureate.

2. Classical musician.

1. Superhero (N.B.: not divinity, at least of popularly contrived Christian variety. Not interested in redeeming/saving the assholes of the world from their own stupidity at my own personal expense. That's called being a nurse, and as my current profession is not a dream job.)

Drunk Girl.

Top Ten--or However Many I Feel Like Coming Up With--Reasons Why Yuppie Apartment Living Sucks

10. Waking up to 4 a.m. sex. (I mean, other peoples' 4 a.m. sex that you have no part in other than feeling like you're stuck in some unwanted, hellish pornographic auditory halluncination a la A Beautiful Mind. Or, as I wrote a friend, "I think it was sex. That, or someone was crucifying a squirrel to their headboard.")

9. Drunk Girl coming home, well, drunk, with friend(s), stumbling up three flights of concrete stairs, giggling and yelling, followed by more drunking clunking around upstairs once in her apartment, followed by the inevitable see # 10 above.

8. Music Drummer Guy, who decides steel trap practice should commence on the exact weekend you work a night shift, because hey man, like dude, chill out and have a joint, I gotta practice, you never know when American Idol might be doing a Southeastern cattle call. It's my art, you know? Hey, I'm sexy, and you're a girl... you wanna do it?

7. Stupid Girl (who also happens to be Drunk Girl) and her music selection, which is compromised exclusively of shitty Top Forty (Beyonce! InSynch! Britney Spears! Paris Hilton Sex Tapes as discussed by Howard Stern!) and somehow gets filtered through your bathroom air conditioning vent at 8 a.m. in the morning.

6. Other people's dog shit. It's called a curb and leash law, people. Give a hoot, don't pollute!

5. Stupid Drunk Girl continuing to stomp around upstairs. Fucking pass out already! Didn't anyone spike your amaretto sour with a roofie at that singles bar or frat party you just went to?!

4. People who write, in soap, SENIORS RULE 4EVA, on their car windows and have their highschool mortarboard tassels hanging from their rearview mirror clearly aren't old enough to be renting luxury apartments on their own. (Mommy and Daddy shouldn't sign the lease for them, either.)

3. Drinking, drugs and one night stands. It was called highschool and college. Note the past tense. Underscore it, if need be.

2. When I sit out in my lanai, which is supposed to be all nice and quiet, I don't need to listen to your endless, stupid ass cell phone conversation in which you whine in a bubble-headed cadence to your Lindsey Lohan clone girlfriend(s) on three way speaker phone: "I don't know. He let me pick the flavor of condom before we did it--do you think this means we're like, exclusive?" and I certainly don't need to up my risk of contracting lung CA by inhaling your nasty cigarette smoke on my porch. Keep your cancer-causing carcinogens and general intellectual vapidity over on your own rental property, please!

1. It's just not community building to tell your neighbor(s), "Get a job, get a life, and get the fuck out of my face, bitch!"












Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Dear God, Are You There? It's Me, Piper.

O Piper! You should be in one of those pathetic Feed the Children/Please Spay/Neuter Your Pets/Give Generously to the Al Gore For President Campaign commercials.

(N.B.: No Pipers were harmed in the making of this blog entry.)

New and Improved (with real lemon scent!)


Isn't the bunny love just way too cute? Like unicorns and rainbows and My Lil' Pony cute. Totally! Behold Flipflop and her husbun. I call him Mookie, or Mudpuddle, because he's just kind of this blob of brown fur that sort of oozes around and every so often tries to nibble a human toe. But look at the love! I'm going to have to start drawing big red hearts and writing "Flipflop Plus Mookie 4EVER!" in glitter ink all over my Beverly Hills 90210 Trapper Keeper.

Now if someone could just tell me how the hell to publish HTML buttons on blogger using a Mac O/S, I'd be like, totally stoked, dude. At least Beta Blogger (which makes me think "beta-blocker" because nursing has warped me beyond psychological repair) has rectified the drill-railroad-spikes-up-your-nose element to publishing weblink menus, but further HTML demystification would be appreciated.