Dreams

Sometimes I dream of telling everyone what to do and how to do it. Sometimes I dream of the reverse, if only someone would tell me what to do and how to do it. Ultimately, neither one is a good alternative although I think I can live with the first option much more than the later.

Rock Out Thursday

I'm pretty sure this song is the most awesome you will hear all day. Enjoy. (Who knew I liked a song by Def Leppard?)

NYC Food

This post is making me hungry. The end.

Gallows Humor

I used to take care of a woman who had lung cancer. The condition would cause her to cough a lot. So much so, that she developed really nice abs from it. You think I'm joking, but I'm not. She coughed eighty percent of the time she was awake, everything made her cough. So while I don't have lung cancer I have been hacking like a crazy woman for a week now. It seems that I might be developing fibrosis of the lungs! Silver lining: rock hard abs.

Fuck You AETNA

Okay, how is this possible I get a bill from Aetna from FOUR YEARS AGO with interest? A bill I've never seen before. Here's my question will the bill reflect badly on my credit if I ignore this ridiculous injustice.

Uncertainty...

is a bitch.

Wow

People abilities to delude themselves are POWERFUL. Seriously impressed with what I have encountered.

Crazy Moment Of The Day

A woman called me rude and yelled at me for keeping the door open"blocking the whole corridor," when I stepped out of my office. She yelled all of this at me while I was in a stall, doing whatever people do in stall bathrooms, and by the time I came out she was gone. My office is next to a mental health type place, my co-worker saw the woman enter the place. I'm going to chalk this up to crazy.
In hindsight it was quite a hilarious moment of complete insanity.

Oh The Humanity

I have a lot hate relationship with infomercials. I have a rule of never buying anything on tv since, 99% of it is over priced crap. However, they are just so kitchy and unintentionally hilarious with their exaggerated problems that their product is going to solve instantly. Someone went ahead and put a bunch of these fake problems in one reel:


via Kottke

One Of Many Reasons Ringo Is Awesome

Someone believes in limited government: "Everything government touches turns to crap." He is fast becoming my favorite Beatles.

I've seen these cartoons before but never in their entirety:

Sometimes Life Won't Stop Sucking

You know I want to be an optimist. I really do. I want to laugh and smile a lot. I want to see only the positive. But it's hard. It's very, very hard when forces beyond your control make you stop in your tracks and immobilize you completely. I want to be healthy and I want to have a beautiful body and energy that goes for miles - but I don't. I never realized, upon till two years ago how much potential is lost when you are focusing on being healthy. I know that's a pretty obvious thing to realize, but yet it took me getting really sick to see how the physical can paralyze the emotional and the cognitive.
I know that shit happens and people move on (or should) but sometimes when it just. won't. stop. it gets to you and it stops you in your tracks. And people who have never been sick or taken care of someone who was sick have really can not fathom the energy that it takes to make it through one day. Serious arrested development.
So yeah the doctors appointment could have gone better. Supposedly I don't have cancer, but you know there isn't a definite answer.

On that note, I'm going to go buy a bike today. It's wildly overpriced, but it will make me happy to own it.

Musical Coincidences

A while back I posted about falling in love with the song "Thirteen." It sounded so familiar, sweet, and intimate. I was sure I hadn't heard the song before hearing it on NPR. Turns out I was wrong. Elliott Smith covered the song on his posthumous released album, which I only listened to a handful of times, but not enough to recognize the music.
Today I'm killing time before my PET scan (which I always confuse with CAT scan) because I have to drink a milky solution, that is slightly sweet and slightly makes me gag. It's really not that bad. I put on the first disc of New Moon and there came the familiar notes of "Thirteen."
I've had other lovely coincidences when it comes to Elliott Smith. Like the one and only time I saw him in concert, at Field Day on a cold and rainy day in New Jersey, although he was mostly out of it he managed to sing a beautiful rendition of the Beatles' "Long, Long, Long" - my favorite song by the band and quite a poignant song at the time. It was quite special moment, out of the many different songs he could have sang, he chose my favorite. It was a pretty spectacular moment for me.
The remarkable little coincidences, mostly imagined by me, that have occurred with Elliott Smith's music have made it like listening to an old confident, who knows you pretty well. I wish Elliott was alive, for that matter I wish a lot of other people were alive too.

Tax Day Ramblings

Me: I wish I was independently wealthy (referring to travel opportunities).

Him: Independent wealth is for suckers. I want to be poor and collect welfare. Then I won't have to pay any taxes, and I'll earn the feeling of superiority to be able to tell others that their life and problems aren't as real as mine.

Song of the Day

"Superstar" by Sonic Youth (originally a Carpenter song)



I don't think a few years ago I would ever like this kind of song. Now it makes me so happy. Sometimes change is good.

Lupe Fiasco's "Hip Hop Saved My Life"

Official video here.

Anwyn Is Punny

Potential Lung Cancer Detection

Boston University researchers have identified a biochemical pathway in cells lining the airways of smokers whose activity rises before lung cancer develops, making it a potential target for an early detection test and possible treatment.

Writing in today's ScienceTranslational Medicine, Dr. Avrum Spira and his colleagues from the BU School of Medicine and the University of Utah say they had already shown that a particular sequence of genetic activity, called the PI3K pathway, is heightened in patients with lung cancer. Their new findings suggest that this activity precedes tumor formation.

Lung cancer, which is the most common fatal cancer, is usually diagnosed in its later stages when treatment is less effective. Scientists have been searching for a way to determine who among the 10 to 20 percent of smokers and former smokers will go on to develop lung cancer so they can perhaps be followed more closely and their cancers caught earlier.

I remember vividly that for years after my father died of lung cancer and then later when I took care of Malka, another person with fatal lung cancer, news of a new developments in the fight against lung cancer would be bitter sweet. I was happy that new cures were being developed, but bitter that it came to late to help the people I knew and loved. Over time I have come to just be happy about the news, more people I know will die of lung cancer and I'm glad it's getting some attention.

Even though lung cancer is the leading fatal cancer it doesn't get the kind of funding or adoration from the public as say Breast Cancer. It's not a "pink ribbon" kind of disease. My father smoked. Malka who was 39 years old when she passed away didn't smoke a single cigarette in all her life. There is a stigma attached that just because you made poor decision you must suffer the ultimate penalty for it. I wonder why people feel this way? Humans are fallible they make horrible decisions all the time. But so many people like Malka or Cathy Seipp never smoked in their lives, yet they suffer the stigma of lung cancer being "your own fault" disease. My father, an incredible human being, didn't deserve to die at 48. So yeah, I'm pretty happy research is done. I hope lung cancer stops being the "Did s/he smoke?" cancer.

Puke

They're college educated, higher-income and believers in the power of a "natural" lifestyle — things like organic food and prolonged breast-feeding — to keep their children's immunity strong enough to ward off vaccine-preventable diseases.

People who don't get their kids vaccinated and are responsible for Measles resurgence in the USA.

Not The Only One Who Hates The Pill

Yay for diaphragms:

My experience was more comical than complicated. My gynecologist looked at me like I wanted to wear a chastity belt. I had tried five different Pills in my life and I refused to experiment with another. So she finally agreed to fit me for a diaphragm and pulled a brochure out from the bottom drawer of her desk and dusted it off and said 'Well this is old, but I am sure not a lot has changed.' The pharmacist also gave me a lot of attitude and said the prescription would take a week to fill, rolling his eyes when I gave him the script.

I have heard stories from the friends who I have convinced to try a diaphragm, and then needed to go to three different doctors before they could find one that would fit it. We are told the diaphragm is not effective, but it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you speak to women older than us, we can see this is not the case. My mother used a diaphragm for years without an issue. I had to get used to using it – how it felt to put it in, which angle would work for me, but that took about a week to two weeks. The bigger barrier (no pun intended) was getting over my fear that it wouldn’t work and trusting myself to use it properly. Nothing I had heard about the diaphragm was true – it wasn’t excessively messy, it didn’t adversely effect my sex life. It can be put in ahead of time. It is wonderful!

Women just don't often trust anything other than the Pill to prevent pregnancy. There's a certain amount of superstition that comes in to trying to avoid getting pregnant. You put your faith in one method or another. Being more in control of the process and taking responsibility for what happens can be scary. It's amazing that we have this one size fits all Pill where someone who is 4'10'' and 95 pounds takes the same one as someone who is 6'2'' – that doesn't seem right. The fewer women that use the diaphragm and the fewer doctors that know how to fit it - the less effective it will be. Women are not getting access or the quality of care to use other methods properly.

I didn't mention but I got a lot of attitude when I was filling out my prescription for a diaphragm by a female pharmacist. Glad to see my layman approach to the pill is getting some scientific backing.

Remember When The Health Care Bill Was All About Keeping Costs Low?

Yeah, me neither. However, that's what the President, the Speaker, and practically eighty percent of the media was saying. Turns out not so much, the Boston Globe writes now. It's time to hike those taxes way up! Just in time for when I hope to have some small kids and mortgage to pay (if I will be that lucky).

Massachusetts municipalities that offer employees, retirees, and elected officials the most generous and costly health insurance plans will feel the squeeze of the new national health care law’s tax on “Cadillac’’ insurance plans.
A family health plan that costs more than $27,500 would be subject to a 40 percent tax on every dollar spent above that threshold. The tax, set to take effect in 2018, would be levied on insurers, who would probably pass it on to municipalities and other employers. A few cities and towns already have family plans that exceed $27,500, and many others are on track to surpass that level before the tax kicks in.

You don't say, private enterprises pass down the taxes levied on them by the government, on their consumers? Crazy idea and yet horribly apparent to anyone with half a brain.

Good Morning To You

I adore this scene, it's so infectious! Happy Friday!

An aside, this scene reminds me how much I loved Danny Kaye, one of my earliest crushes. I used to watch a lot of old movies as a kid and instead of being in love with Brandon from 90210, I had crushes on Danny Kaye and (more respectable) Gregory Peck.

Making Me Hungry

On a friend's suggestion I've been perusing Confessions of a Pioneer Woman (I remember seeing her blog a while ago on Smitten), not only is her life story pretty inspiring, but her blog just kicks a lot of ass (homeschooling, photography, cooking, home renovations - a lot of stuff done well). Anyhoo, I came an early post of hers about making steak and now I'm very, very, hungry.