Greatest video ever: mashup of Leonard Nimoy’s infamous “Bilbo Baggins” video with hardcore legends Bad Brains’ awesome song “Pay To Cum”. Grok this:
[youtube]rqQtoMyi2xQ[/youtube]
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Tag: uncategorized
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ouch
tonight Holly was cooking and the fire alarm went off. i jumped at it to try and twist it to get it down and shut it off and my hand hit the ceiling really hard and now my thumb feels broken but i think it’s ok – there’s not much swelling, although Holly had it iced almost immediately.
it hurts like a f—er.
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A Short Recap
So, to recap…
- We’re moving soon. Any help appreciated, especially with cleaning, painting, repairs, and moving!
- Here’s a nice little tour! (Expect real photos this weekend!)
- Got my PC back; it’s still having issues with shutdown, but basically seems pretty stable otherwise. A new mobo helps.
- Also got my first credit card. Do you believe that?!
Things are looking, as it were, up.
The house thing, though… boy, is that place a mess. It’s incredible how much TLC the place needs. Holly did a fantastic job on the place already, but we’ve barely scratched the time-scarred surface. So if you’re bored this weekend, or anytime over the next month or so….
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moving soon
We’ve rented a new place! It’s a gigantic house, with two floors plus a basement. Nine foot ceilings! It’s in pretty ratty shape, but it’s over 130 years old, so there ya go.
Of course, being a very old house means that there are probably no more than ten power outlets in the entire place. We’ll just have to stock up on power strips and try not to overdo any one outlet.
And the landlord is sooooo friendly. I certainly don’t expect anything extra from him just because we get along… it’s just so nice to actually have an interesting and friendly person as your landlord. I once worked a corporate job where the ironic in-house motto was “easy to do business with,” and this nice man seems to embody just that. And his wife is an artist! She works with oils, and does Manet Impressionism!
So, if anyone wants to help us fix the place up and move, let me know. I can’t promise reasonable reciprocation, but if you like beers or i can do anything for you, we’ll work something out.
It’s huge. I cannot state this enough. Gargantuan. Nice area, too.
And pets? Way, way allowed. Very cool.
Unfortunately, we are stuck paying rent where we’re at until mid-July. Oh well. It’ll be a little tougher for the few couple of months, but we’ll be okay. I plan on starting moving over to the new place as soon as possible, though.
I can’t wait to start recording regularly and working on guitars. I plan on eventually making it a sort of hobby business. Eventually, i want to start turning out my own custom guitars.
Also, i did get my PC back from the shop… but it still has restart/power-down issues. I can live with it. At least i can work on it without it going all wonky in the middle of anything at any time.
And… the 1-month mensiversary of my grandfather’s exit was yesterday. Foul, foul day it was. I am still heartbroken, natch.
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black hole
it’s starting to really hit me. the initial shock and numbness is done with. today is somehow different. it was already really bad for me (it’s been a deepening pit of hell for 2 1/2 years now, with the absolute worst part of it starting just two weeks ago). but now it seems even harsher somehow. i feel like i’m trying desperately to escape the immense gravity of a black hole.
it’s sinking in.
hell, i’m sinking in.
someone i knew and loved, lived with and shared experiences and conversations with for years and years… dead. gone. forever.
no more talking. no more sharing. no more gestures or hugs or ironic smiles. ever.
i should point out that, as a devout agnostic who leans rather heavily towards atheism, i do not believe in an afterdeath of any kind. extraordinary claims, after all, require extraordinary evidence. so this is… difficult. to say the least.
life. gone. over. finished. done. kaput. a fire is snuffed forever.
this may be even worse than when my poor sweet grandmother died in 2001, if only because now, the other shoe has finally dropped. it’s like the floor itself has been pulled out from under me, and all that exists is empty space underneath for me to fall through. the bottom, as it were, has dropped out!
i am starting to freak out
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Goodbye
Col. Ralph Edward Jarratt, USAF, ret.
August 4, 1920 — April 29, 2007
Best Friend & Grandpa
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terrible happiness
My grandfather’s back home now. We’re all, basically, on Death Watch. He’s home; home to die. I hope he knows he’s home, anyway.
He is now beyond being able to communicate. I remember this part all too well from when my dear sweet Grandma was at death’s door. It’s the most frustrating thing. You sense that they want something but have no way to determine what and give it to them.
Not only that, but it seems like my grandfather is thinking on an infant level. Maybe not; in a way, though, that would be preferable. I hate the thought of him knowing full well the extent of the damage to his verbal and motor skills. But the oxygen deprivation from last Thursday’s terrible ordeal virtually guarantees that he’s brain damaged.
It’s horrifying, and heart-shattering, and there’s not a god damned thing that anybody can do.
The poor guy has been through so much. To think that he’s laying there with his ribs all broken, just fading out, piece by piece… I’m completely heartbroken.
Sometimes, when he’s awake, he’ll just stare and stare at you. No words. No words. I don’t know what he’s thinking. I don’t know if he knows who I am. My bud, my lifelong best friend, my teacher and mentor… is he in there somewhere?
So I’m trying to get on FMLA so I don’t lose my job. After giving them 50 hours of every week of my time, I have earned a whopping $0.30 raise, which I do need, since Dayton-area employers seem to think it’s completely fair to pay a person with over 10 years of call center experience $9 an hour. Unfortunately, I have to prove that he was my legal guardian.
Much easier said than done.
So I’ve been digging through countless drawers and boxes of memories. Ever have a moment of terrible happiness? That’s seeing a picture of my grandparents, young and sweet and smiling, knowing that one is gone forever, and the other is leaving soon.
My grandparents raised me, so this has been exactly like losing parents to me.
But I cannot prove it.
I think that I am going to lose my job very soon.
What could be worse than that?
I know that I am going to lose my grandpa very soon.
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Grandpa’s pain
Today was another mostly shitty day.
My grandfather was due to be taken to Hospice at around 1pm. Getting up around noon, I didn’t want to show up at the hospital just to turn around, pay $2 parking (let’s remember that I really have no income right now), and leave again. So I waited around at home for the call to action.
Finally, at 6:30pm, he was moved. I could have been at the hospital the whole time with my family. So that was irritating, and now I feel guilty for something I didn’t even cause.
At hospice, he was settled in and Holly and my uncle Kent and I went out to get Subway. We came back and finished our food. I went out to smoke and came back to find Holly sitting in the dining area alone. We went to my grandfather’s room and this is what we found:
The door was shut. After knocking lightly, I opened the door and beheld four Hospice staff and my dear uncle standing around in some vague state of chaos. Here’s what was going down:
They needed to change the dressing on his wounds (he’s got pressure sores – essentially bedsores, having been in bed for pretty much the last 2 1/2 years), and had just given him morphine so they could roll him over to change them without excessive pain. Remember that he’s got multiple cracked ribs from chest compressions, when the doctors in the ICU brought him back to life a few days ago.
So the bones in his chest are probably killing him when they do this. They’ve got to be. I heard him loudly moaning. “Oahh! Ooh! Aaahh! Oooah! Ohh!”
So what’s the problem, exactly?
My father and, mostly, my uncle want him to not have morphine. My uncle made no friends in that room tonight. He was aggressive. I do not blame him for that, since many health care workers have failed us terribly in the past. Still…
I’m not at all certain what alternative they want, exactly, because my uncle tonight did not want to elaborate with me on the other side of that coin. He only wanted to emphatically and adamantly defend his position that Grandpa NOT be given morphine.
At the end, after trying to voice my understanding of things, he simply walked off. I told him: “I’m not trying to fight with you or anything, I only want to understand all of this.” This he would not hear.
He said that Grandpa made more noise when they were moistening his nose. I remember: “Dad, dad!” It was not as loud. It was not a horrifying sound. Not like when he was being turned over. “Ohh! Aaaah! Ooooh! Aaa-ooh! Ohh!”
He would not hear anything that I had said. It was Know-It-All vs. Know-Nothing. Many times, my voice goes unheard, or, worse, talked over. I am not to be taken seriously in any opinion that I give. This fact has been presented to me in practice many, many times in the past, and in the present. I’m just this perpetual sixteen-year old kid.
I used to wonder why I felt so inconsequential, so ineffectual. I have been treated like this all my life. One thing leads to another, and soon enough everybody else does it, too.
(I am a densely angry thirty-five year old man. I understand more about people, and about the way the universe works, than anybody else I know, including the blow-hards who only claim to know. I understand the great “mysteries” of life. (There is no mystery, only cause and effect. There are only events, in varying orders, at various frequencies. People behave according to their chemicals, steered by their recorded experiences.) I can do any task presented before me, and have proven this many times over. I am tougher than many. The things that I have seen and experienced, other people only emptily brag about. I am far more powerful than I let on – I am only weak because I am not usually brave enough to try.)
So I left, too. I walked right out of that place, and I drove home. I wanted to smash something. Had Holly not been in the car with me, I would have driven fast and crazy and mad. When I got home, I changed into shorts and a tank top and ran as hard as I could. I found an abandoned shopping cart and threw it to the ground: “chank!” I punched a street sign: “smak!” I wanted to beat the holy living hell out of something – to break something, anything into tiny little pieces. I broke nothing, and maybe that means something, or not.
The more I think about it – and why not think about it? What I think doesn’t matter! – the more I think this: “So what if he’s stoned out of his poor, already-crippled mind for a couple of hours, every other day or so?”
Think about having your ribs broken. Then think about having someone forcibly roll you onto your side. Think about the raw, cracked bone rubbing up against bone, under your meat. Surely bone, muscle, and sinew must all scream with pain!
One good thing: possibly the only coherent sentence my grandfather spoke today was when he looked at me and said, “I love you.” That was maybe the sweetest moment of my entire life.
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Tides
Two and a half years ago, my grandfather suddenly took ill. I will never forget the late-night phone call. This was a couple years after his triple bypass. Up to that day, he was a completely normal person, as healthy as you’d imagine an 84 year old ox of a man to be. He’d forget words now and then, but was otherwise just like you or me.
He’d had leukemia for over thirty years, mind you.
After he took ill, he was never the same. Greene Memorial Hospital did everything wrong. Every little thing. They tried to put him in their nursing home (his doctor Taylor has a stake in that facility, FYI) over and over, where he only continued to do worse. They did not allow him the chance to get any better. And he didn’t!
In that system, he has lost his ability to walk and to swallow. Almost 100% of the life on this planet survives largely because of those two underrated skills. But what do I know?
His general health has declined steadily ever since. He became confused. So much that I am not 100% positive that he knows exactly who I am anymore or how we are related. He doesn’t seem to know his general layout in the universe anymore.
Which brings us to now.
Last Sunday night, he was having some trouble with breathing and a very rapid heart beat. We called a squad to take him to the hospital (not Greene Memorial). He had some pneumonia. He stayed in ICU for a few days.
Thursday: I was sitting with him, trying to make some kind of conversation (he’s a man of extraordinarily few words these days, alas), when he said “help me.” I got a nurse and she said that he was “guppy breathing” (exactly, more or less, what you would imagine a guppy breathing like) and he had some crap in his throat they found difficult to suction out.
His blood oxygen level was dipping below normal. When it fell below 85%, a doctor advised that they would have to put him on a ventilator, which itself could be fatal, due to his weakened condition and his low platelet count.
They ushered me out of the room to put the tube down his throat. There was an undeniable sense of emergency to the situation. I called my dad and paced around in the hallway outside of the ICU. About a half hour later, the doctor came out and informed me that they got the tube in him, but that his heart had stopped.
He had died. Died.
CPR was performed, which, par for the course, broke some of his ribs from the compression. He came back and was breathing with the ventilator.
When we went in afterward, his blood oxygen was well below 90%. He was not looking too good. In fact, he looked real bad. His left shoulder, I noticed, was gray. He made no movements or sound.
We all gathered around, my dad and his wife and I, plus nurses and doctors and a clergy woman. We had a terrible time. I cried and grieved and told him how much I loved him and how good he had been, etc. His blood oxygen bottomed out at around 45%. There would most likely be brain damage if he managed to survive at all, which was not likely at all.
He slowly became more responsive, and was eventually looking up and down with his eyes, and moving his arms. He’d take his arms and push them out above him, as if punching the air in slow motion.
I think now that he was saying: “God damn it! Stop talking to me like I was dying! I’m not dying, you bunch of assholes!” I think he was scared and more than a little pissed off.
He recovered from death. Unfortunately, little, if anything, can be done at this point, should his poor sweet old heart give up again.
This Sunday, a few days later, they took him to a room near the ICU, but out of it. His blood oxygen has been ~100% ever since a couple hours after he died. Later today (Monday), we will be taking him to Hospice for a week. After that, assuming he is still with us, he will go back to his home, where he has lived, off and on, for 35 years. He does not know whose house it is, but he will be home, with his poor broken ribs (which he has yet to complain about), where he can die, hopefully peacefully, and in relative comfort among his family.
I am 100% not ready for this. I love this man so much that it’s just killing me. He and my grandmother raised me. The flood of memories that assault me constantly is overwhelming. I drown in them hourly, revive, and drown again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
My poor father, who has been taking care of him for the last two years, is beaten and it’s showing. I worry for him. He has beaten a lot of odds himself, and is a fine, good man. In sheer kindness, my father is second only to his dad – who is lying in a bed, unsure of his world, and dying.
The floor is dropping out of this family. There are no more kings or queens in our domain; only two princes and a minor count. We are haphazard and spent, our empire having fallen to dust.
Categories
the long goodbye…
spent something like the last 20 hours in the ICU. grandfather: “help me” – phlegm, breathing rattley; some suction helped little. not oxygenating enough (level should be ~100; under 90 not good, under 85 bad – he was dropping to low 80s). concern raised: due to leukemia problems=platelet count low, trache tube could be fatal if laceration occurs. had to wait outside for several extraordinarily tense minutes. dad on his way. Doctor comes out, says they got the tube in his throat, but his heart stopped. he died. they revived him with CPR, breaking ribs (par). oxygen level bottomed out at 45.
my god how i cried and how i loved.
that fighter, that ox, that superhumanly strong man – his vitals are god damn near normal and have been for several hours. that is exactly like him, too. i hold no great hope, though.
need sleep now will return to hospital later.
you=regret nothing starting now!
November 11, 1922–April 11, 2007
My grandfather is exhibiting end of lifecycle signs. My dad told me last night that he’s been having some rapid breathing episodes, among other things, which some nurses have agreed are signs.
Signs never have good news. It’s always warnings, bad portents of some sort. “Don’t come here,” “Ingredients: poison,” “Keep away,” “Bad juju involved,” “No more running over retarded children allowed,” “The end is nigh!” and the like. You never see a sign that says “Today is not so bad when you think about it, is it?” or “Welcome invaders!”
Last night we had him ambulanced to Grandview for uncontrollable bleeding around his feeding tube and congestion, which the hospital now tells me is pneumonia. My work is probably not going to let me take any additional time off, but we’ll just have to wait and see. My grandfather was my primary father figure in childhood and until he took off later on, raised me with my grandmother, who died about six years ago now (i was there when she left).
Between being overworked and working over to compensate for the expenses we have with an uninsured diabetic, Holly and i have not been able to be around my grandfather much. On my days off, i have been taken over by an unshakable funk which prevents me from leaving the apartment, much less going over there. Plus, there’s some guilt and shame for not having more time off to help my father and grandfather, and the general weird vibes re: his caretakers, who are all very nice; it’s just that i really wanted him to have licensed health care professionals, from an agency, people who could take shifts so nobody would have to sleep on the job – but we’ve had so many complications in that department. So there’s a lot of complicated feelings swirling around within me, not the least of which is a deep, deep feeling of regret for not having spent more time with him, especially back when he was more coherent.
One last thing: it’s been utterly, utterly heartbreaking watching his health decline. He is so incredibly skinny now. I mean you could wrap a single fist around his thighs, for fuck’s sake. I’ve always known him to be this big strong powerful (and cogent) ox of a man. Now he thinks it’s 1975 and he’s not sure what the President’s name is, and looks as frail and helpless as an infant.
These next few weeks are going to be pure, absolute hell no matter what.
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life
You should see the movie Shortbus. But do not watch it with kids or family around. This is John Cameron Mitchell’s message of love to the human race. After your hymen has been punctured by the first several minutes, you’ll have a glorious and beautiful film about mercy and redemption to watch. It’s hilarious and moving, often in the same beat. And the soundtrack is incredible.
I have recently become a vegetarian. I have always had a problem with meat, because something very special has to die in order to feed people like me. That special thing is life, which is a precious and wonderful thing. Therefore, any form of life which is likely to experience self-awareness is on my “do not eat your friends” list.
I damn near died Sunday night. Ironically, I had eaten a microwavable vegetarian dinner, and hadn’t bothered to notice that it contained nuts. I had red bumps all over and my throat was definitely constricting. I hadn’t had an allergic reaction like that since early childhood. It was scary. But i didn’t want to get stuck with an $1800 ER/Ambulance bill, so i stayed home throughout. I took a fairly large chance with my life, i guess, and perhaps i shouldn’t have. But i pulled through, thanks in no small way to Holly.
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religion is phony
I’ve been pretty down about my PC lately. It’s hard to read the screen most of the time, and it crashes often, failing to reboot about 90% of the time. But I just had to try and write this.
I just picked up Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable, inspiring, and engrossing work. So I’ve been thinking lately, you could easily guess, about religion and god and death/afterdeath and all that.
Here’s what I’ve come up with:
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not really an update
Hopefully will have pc fixed in the near future. For now, am online on a sporadic basis at best.
This is getting really, really, really, really, really old. I miss my programs and my files and my ability to just open something up and pursue it until i need a Kleenex.
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pc issues
So i just did a fresh, clean install of XP (MCE) and my pc still won’t boot half the time. It powers up, but doesn’t boot. It usually takes 2-4 tries. It won’t restart, either, it just hangs, every time, after XP is down and it’s still powered on. The screen is janky and just about anything makes it go all crazy, even after i uninstalled and reinstalled the driver.
I thought for a bit about building my own PC, scavenging what i can from this one, but too much is integrated into my mobo and i really don’t know what, exactly, i can scavenge, since i don’t know which bits are fried. Also, i can find a good mobo for cheap, but i have found that i have pretty demanding specs – when you’re thinking about committing to a project like that, you really think long and hard about future-proofing as much as you can afford to. If i’m going to build my own rig, i want it to be capable of swapping out for bigger, better, badder parts and whatnot.
So i’m going to wait a little while and use this thing as much as it will allow me to, and then take it into the shop and plunk down as much as they want to just fix it.
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crap!
My computer is hosed. I’ll need to save up & put it in the shop. I need a winter jacket first. I’ll never get a Fender.
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ok!
Well, my pc appears to be on the fritz yet again! I’ll be attempting to reinstall XP again shortly. Actually, I’m on a fresh, nondestructive reinstall right now, and I believe I may be taking the what-the-hell-just-go-ahead-and-reformat route presently.
On another note, a group of what we believe to be coyotes were apparently having a Jets vs. Sharks thing some small distance outside our back window in the wee hours last night. It is not yet known whether any neighbors are missing any pets.
For now, sleep….
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Gaius Baltar = Jesus???
Is it me, or are they deliberately trying to slowly reveal Gaius Baltar as some sort of twisted, ironic Jesus figure on the new Battlestar Galactica?
If true, it’s pure, sick genius.
If false, thank the gods for lifting the crushing weight of that overly hackneyed analogy from our collective shoulders.
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RIP RAW
Farewell, Robert Anton Wilson. You were there when we needed you, and left behind an arsenal of hilarious and unsettling tools with which to battle the enemies of free thought. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Hail Eris; all hail Discordia. Praise Dobbs. Ramen.