Why is it that the French actually have words for this stuff? Is the wine? Napolean? The Sun King? It's something I wonder on an irregular basis. Then I go read my saved copy of the military history of France to make myself feel better. If that doesn't work, I blame Jean Claude Van Damme on them, even though he's Belgian or Dutch or something. What? I got yelled at for like two hours once for telling a French chick that she needs to take him home with her when her tour of duty as an exchange student is up. Apparently the French are embarrassed by him, too.

Deja vu is such a part of the English language now that pretty much everyone knows what it means, but jamais vu? It literally means "never seen", I believe, but the translation is the feeling of experiencing familiar events for the first time. It's like walking into your house and feeling like you've never been there before. Jamais vu is one of my least favorite, actually, it is my least favorite seizure. I hate it more than deja vu, more than a full blown bite my tongue in half tonic-clonic, more than the time I got lost on the treadmill, even more than my regular seizure-induced trips to Pennsylvania. Deja vu is no big, because at least everything is "known". You know? I know who I am, where I am, who I'm with, what's going on, what's going to happen (hey, I'm psychic), and all of that. Sure, I'm incapacitated, but I know and I can work with that to emotionally stabilize myself until my brain has slipped back into gear and I'm back with the program. Jamais vu is different. It turns everything into the unknown. Usually, I have a strong sense of who "myself" is, even if I don't remember my name, but that's about it. I don't know where I am, who I am with, what I'm supposed to be doing, where I'm supposed to be going, how to get there if I wanted to. I am completely lost and, intellectually at least, I know I shouldn't be, but I am.

As terrifying as it is to experience an almost instant immersion from the known to the completely unknown, what's worse are the consequences of not knowing. Lost, I'm something of a docile, brainless dog. I wander around, looking for the familiar, which can never be found. I don't speak. I can't tell the difference between the sidewalk and the street. I can't even read. I am fully capable of wandering for miles whilst post ictal. That's a fancy term for after the seizure itself, the recovery period between seizure and normal brain functioning. At least, that's what I use it for. I have gotten myself literally lost, nearly. It's not so bad, because I can usually retrace my path. I don't forget what I was doing while post ictal, but the residue of fear and surreality just don't leave. It's why I have a cell phone, I get lost, I find a landmark and call the StudMuffin. "Honey, I don't know where I am, come get me. Please don't panic and don't call the cops. I'm fine. It's Kansas, dammit. I see grass and cows." It's why I thought about getting a seizure dog. I don't need something to predict my seizures so I don't hurt myself, I need something to keep me from wandering around in traffic until I'm back to myself.

It's weird how these things clump up for me, especially after a tonic-clonic (that's the one where you fall and jerk a lot). It's like daisy chains of deja vu-normal vu-jamais vu all swirling around my temporal path in CinemaScope technicolor accompanied by sore muscles and this horrid pain in the tongue.

Of course, the Bratchild wandered in while I was reading about CinemaScope at Wikipedia and somehow it ended up turning into a lesson on Linnean Taxonomy. Ergo, if I had a point to this, I completely forgot what it was, though I do know what a khaan mckennai is now and the Fourth Grader Bratchild can now use the Linnean taxon system better than most high school graduates. Of course, he can't spell. Grr.

About an hour ago, I just got up from my comfy spot where I was diligently working and picking at my toenails at the same time, drove to Wal-mart, bought a medium sized bottle of the new-ish citrus Listerine, drove back home, parked, put the Listerine in the bathroom, did not use the Listerine, then returned to my comfy spot where I will shortly (like in two minutes) resume diligently working and not picking at my toenails.

Jesus wept, but that's a bu-fugging weird thing to do.

I think that, like most people, we kind of use our bathroom as an impromptu library. Well, staring at the walls can get boring, ya know? But, well, we won't get into the particulars. Anyway, the StudMuffin and I have something of a Cold War going on in the bathroom. We both bring in reading material, though his is pretty much a two foot stack of bodybuilding and 4x4 mags with the past few Fredericks of Hollywood catalogues stashed at the bottom. Mine tends to be a paperback of some sort. There's room, he moves his library whenever we clean, so it's no big. At least not for him. Me? I'm paranoid about being in a bathroom with magazines that have people in them. There's pictures, you know? And they stare at you while you're doing your business. Once, Dennis Newman stared me down unblinkingly while I was brushing my teeth. To make matters worse, he was on the cover of Muscle & Fitness, so you can guess that he was wearing nothing but a brief pair of spandex trunks, a lot of body oil, and a smile. An almost naked guy was watching me brush my teeth in the bathroom. I did the only thing anyone can do under those circumstances. I refused to go into that bathroom for two days. This highly displeased Stud-boy because we've only got two bathrooms and the occasional, erm, emergency forced him to give up his roost in the Dennis Newman-free bathroom.

My current stand-off is with this Val Vasilef person. I've never met the man. I know very little about the man. He could be, for all I know, the muscle-bound reincarnation of Mother Theresa. I still hate him. Why? He's on the back cover of Ironman and he's been staring up from said back cover next to the commode for three weeks now. I have covered him with towels, left over Stud-o tee shirts, toilet paper, books ranging from a thirty pound art history tome to one of those serial western paperback books. Every time I come back, he's there, smirking up at the next customer right next to the commode. I wasn't impressed with the "Russian Bear" when I first saw him smirking up from the dining room table months and months ago. I'm sorry, but "TV Action Commerical" isn't what I'd call resume-worthy for someone hawking his own, personal nutritional supplement. He's so friggin phony. He's wearing BDU britches, and a bandana. He smirks like my brother smirks (FYI, smirking like my brother is not sexy, I don't care what anyone else says. My brother is sexy just like a freshly mashed tarantula is sexy). Okay, and to make this all even worse, he's doing this right next to the toilet!

Argh! I'm so not stepping foot in that bathroom until I can think about it without shuddering.

The fam spent a few hours whiling away the afternoon at the pool hall today. I guess that would be yesterday. Aren't we June and Ward Cleaver? We take our son to the pool hall. It's really not as bad as it sounds. No booze, just soda pop and a some time learning vectors. Anyway. The Bratchild and I spent our time taking turns pretty much not sinking anything on a quarter table, you know, the one's you have to put coins in when you go to bars and bowling alleys and stuff. The StudMuffin and the father in law (heretofore referred to affectionately as "Dad" since "StudMuffin Sr." is my serum of ipecac) did some eight ball on the table nearby. They were, as usual, fine for about twenty minutes and then the arguing started. Oi. El Studerino wanted to play it so he played by his pool league rules and Dad played by his bar buddy rules. I'm still not terribly sure what the difference is beyond the fact that Studboy had to call his shots and if he didn't hit his balls, it was considered ball in hand (a scratch where you get to put the cue ball anywhere ya wanna) for Dad or however he wanted to play a scratch. Dad just couldn't sink the eight ball, hit the balls that weren't his, or scratch off the table. Dad, of course, didn't get it. His thinking patterns just don't work that way. He's an old coot, sorry, but you just got to accommodate old coots sometimes. Pick your battles and so on and so forth. The bickering commenced for a good forty five minutes and included the usual tautologies and eventually the fact that if you didn't play bar rules, you would start a barroom brawl and if you didn't play league rules, you'd lose and your league buddies would be pissed at you. I'm a smart muffin, I hit the sacrosant ladies room when they started eyeing the place for a referee.

The pool hall ladies room features, in addition to feminine protection vending machines and "novelties" (including condoms that are "slimmer design for a tighter fit". Get a the right size and cock ring, bonehead. Them bad boys break), something called "Unique Advertising". They have a cheap, black wooden picture frame with scratch plexiglass bolted to the bathroom stall wall. Inside is lackadaisically cut picture frame matting. In addition to ads for a bail bondsman, insurance, a quick lube place out on the highway, and the ubiqutuous "Your ad here! Let our advertisers know where you heard about them!"; there was a rather disturbing notice: "City Menu Guide Coming Soon!!!"

While I can certainly appreciate the effort to supply reading material in the ladies, I'm not sure that's what I want to read when I'm in there. Then there's the let 'em know deal. I can see me telling the maitre d at the local steakhouse, oh yeah, I saw the menu in the bathroom at the pool hall while I was sitting there wishing the chickie in the next stall would stop talking on her fucking cell phone to her fucking boyfriend, wondered if I could get said chickie to pass me t.p. under the stall wall, and thought, hmm, I'm in the mood for some steak now.

There has got to be some inner transcendentalism thing going on here. You know the whole spiel, find deep life-meaning in your surroundings. Well, Thoroeau and Emerson were talking about walking in the woods, but hey, you work with what you got. For me, tight now, it's the pool hall bathroom. The silver lining in all of this was that I spent so long staring at the word "menu" and contemplating the meaning of life, the StudMuffin sent the bartender chick (she's a complete sweetheart) in to find out if I'd fallen in, had a seizure, or maybe escaped through the window and went for coffee. She handed me a roll of t.p. under the door, banged on the stall next to me and told 'Manda to get off the fucking phone in the bathroom.

Yesterday we had a decent little ice blast. It's snowing a bit now so there is a quiet layer of snow over the ice. Winter, real winter, fascinates me. I love it very much and I can sit there and do the "be at one use the force Luke" thing with it for hours. I think that one of the biggest factors about my attraction to something is noise level. I like things that are serene, quiet, and maybe a bit desolate. I have quiet pipes on my Harley and I want quieter ones. All I want to hear is the wind. There's bit of a brouhaha between my desire for quiet and the much touted StudMuffin battle cry: "Loud pipes save lives". Anyway.

I'm sick today, yesterday, too. It's an odd sort of cold/flu thing. I don't sneeze much, I'm not coughing, but my nose leaks and I can feel every breath I take in my lungs. It's cold, dry, and painful. Being a somewhat smart muffin, I'm staying inside with a humidifier and chicken broth. But, looking into my backyard with its pristine layer of snow and the watching the tiny, dry flakes of snow quietly fall, I want to go outside and be with the snow. I want to be with the cold.

The snow isn't that deep and the archery target is just sitting there, in the back corner by the fence. I'm new to archery (I've had a grand total of two sessions with my bow) but I've come to really love it. I'm a good shot naturally. The first time I ever fired a pistol, I outshot the StudMuffin who had his expert marksman badge. The thing I loathe about shooting is the noise. It's loud. The hammer whacks the primer, the primer sets off the gun powder, the gun powder explodes and sends the bullet scurrying out of the barrel at over 1000 feet per second, depending on the caliber of the bullet. When you have a charge that's capable of producing an explosion that sends a chunk of metal from zero to 1,000 ft/sec instantly go off, it's loud. Still, I like shooting because I love the feeling it gives me to poke holes in a piece of paper with a bullet. Sounds kind of stupid, actually.

Archery is different. For one, you can re-use the projectile. Two, I can do it in my back yard. There's a small creek lined with old hardwood trees between me and the next housing development and at least half a mile between my target and the next house. Add a few bales of hay and a cheap archery target and I'm set up. Most importantly, it's quiet. Even though I don't have a silencer on my bow string, there's only a little twang followed by a muted thunk when the arrow hits the target. Unless, of course, the StudMuffin aka Big Chief Never Shuts Up is around. Nothing is quiet when he's around. It's also hard to do. The gun was pretty much instant mastery, but a bow and arrow are much harder. A gun is static, the sights are the same unless you manually change them, the hammer falls at the same speed and hits the round in the same spot (differences that exist are negligible). With an arrow, you have to learn to shoot the bow consistently. With an arrow, you have to learn to be still.

Still is, it's my holy grail. Quiet, peace, serenity, stillness. Still is letting existence happen. Still is letting the snow fall and letting the cold be. Still is those moments with the arrow knocked, string drawn, and letting the body and the bow do nothing but exist together. And when you let go, the snow is a silent blanket, the cold is calming peace, and the bow is a quiet shiver. The StudMuffin wants me to go bow-hunting with him. He has visions of us together in the woods, bagging a deer or a turkey. Sharing is his holy grail. He talks on and off about getting me into shooting competitions and has lately discussed getting me into archery competitions when I've mastered the bow. I don't want to do either. For me, the bow is about stillness and release. There would be no release if the arrow hit something that I would then have to trail as it slowly died. There would be no stillness if I was required to perform for an audience against others. I don't even want to shoot my bow and arrow with him.

I suppose that's one of the greatest ways we differ. I'm internally driven, for me existing matters more than doing. I shoot my bow in order to feel the stillness and the release. I have no real drive to accomplish anything. He's externally driven, the doing matters almost as much as accomplishing. He shoots his bow in order to go hunting with it, he goes hunting in order to kill something to put in the freezer. His bow is the tool to acheive a desired result. My bow is the desire result. He needs to accomplish something to be fulfilled, satisfied, content. I need to be still.

The restroom door said, "Gentlemen."
So I just walked inside.
I took two steps and realized
I'd been taken for a ride.
I heard high voices,
turned and found the place was occupied
by two nuns, three old ladies, and a nurse.
What could be worse?
than two nuns, three old ladies, and a nurse

The restroom door said, "Gentlemen."
It must have been a gag.
As soon as I walked in there
I ran into some old hag.
She sprayed me with a can of mace
and smacked me with her bag.
I could tell this just wouldn't be my day.
What can I say?
It just wasn't turning out to be my day.

The restroom door said, "Gentlemen."
And I would like to find
the crummy little creep
who had the nerve to switch the sign.
'Cause I've got two black eyes
and one high heel up my behind.
Now I can't sit with comfort and joy.
Boy oh boy.
No I'll never sit with comfort and joy.

Lyrics by Bob Rivers
Visit Bobrivers.com



*chortle*

In addition to being a flaming heterosexual, I don't have enough snack food in my life.

Darn it.

I don't think anyone is 100% heterosexual or 100% homosexual. This may or may not be true, but it is my own personal opinion and I'm highly enamored of it. I think you can be like 99% of either, but I think that there's at least one person out there amongst the 7 billion souls on the planet that is of your non-preferred gender that you find yourself attracted to.

Anyway. I'm a flaming heterosexual. I'm in the 95% or more straight depending on where I am in reference to ovulation. Looking at a naked woman is kind of like looking at a stop sign. It's there. It's useful. It can even be aesthetically pleasing if the local hicks had a decent shot grouping whilst drunk. My erectile tissues usually yawn. Nothing against women, they just don't crank my tractor. Men, on the other hand. Hubba fuckin' hubba, baby! I am so a gay man trapped in a big boobied body. My favorite flavor is the raging bisexual kind full of testosterone and machismo. I am so not repentant about it, either. The best thing in the world is that it's perfectly acceptable in my society for a guy to prance around in public without a shirt. Ah, military physical training--in cadence exercise!--is my favorite spectator sport. I get all quivery when football players slap each other on the ass. Damn. I'm drooling. Anyway. despite my flaming straightness and unabashed adoration for the male form, I find myself, every once in while, doing the uttery incomprehensible. At least to me.

We went for a bike ride today (FYI: StudMuffin looks fuckin' hot on his Harley) and spent a few pleasant hours on back highways doing 55 mph. For some fucked up reason I got to thinking that it would be kinda nice to have a leggy chick on the back of my bike. I almost wrecked when I realized what was going through my head, but I got over it. The more I thought about it, the more I got to liking the idea of going down the highway with something soft and tattooed behind me. I don't have a back rest on the pillion, so she'd have to hold on to me and it's a dinky lil' ol' 883 Sportster so there's not enough room to stretch out and get comfy--especially if she had a set of long legs, so her thighs would be wrapped pretty tight around my hips. I couldn't tell if I got all nipply about the idea of being squeezed between a set of feminine thighs or because it was all of 55 degrees Farenheit outside with a windchill of about five since I was on the scoot on the highway.

And I realized, for the millionth time this year, that Muffie is a pervert. And I think I'm okay with that. I don't know if I'll ever be okay enough with that to get a leggy chick to accesorize my Harely with or not, though. Then again, I might. I've met two women in my lifetime that I've thought about climbing between their thighs. I think I could be quite pleased to have either one behind me on the Harley.

Ol' Revver Phelpsy boy needs to get a new clue or something because yaoi has penetrated his mighty fine overly sanctimonious nest of self-righteous moral turptitudinous vipers. The joys of yaoi dosei ai have appeared amongst the manga racks betwixt such greats as Sailor Moon and Clamp (shudder). I haven't found a Clamp manga I can tolerate yet. Too sparkly girlie. Even the angsty s'posed to be for boys stuff. Anyway. I am---as anyone who knows about my unsecret perversion (as if my interest list here didn't so give it away) can imagine---beside myself in yaoi fangirly joy. I'm squealing and kyaa-ing and glomping and sprinkling mystical flowers of pixie sparklies everywhere. Pretty much typical yaoi fangirly behavior when confronted with yaoi. Yes, ChibiMuffie has been running rampant all week.

So I've been reading my new yaoi manga and composing long, flowery notes of adoration to the publishers, but we won't get into that because it's, quite frankly, pretty sickening overall. After reading---I buy manga for the stories, really!---them often enough, I actually managed to tranquilize FangirlyMuffie. So it took hours. I thought I had to mope through life with only Fake to console me so let me wallow in my hawg-trough of joy. Anyway, I did eventually get around to thinking and reading at the same time. The kind of thinking that comes with actual concepts, words, and cross-pollination with other concepts and experiences. You know, something other than lamenting that I have to wait another month for the next volume.

The interesting thing I noted is the typical relationship between the seme and uke. Uh, seme (seh-meh, not seem), pitcher, top, fuck-er; uke (oo-keh, not yook): catcher, bottom, fuck-ee. In anime/manga, the seme is almost always taller and usually has darker hair than uke, but not always. Anyway. I was noting the typical relationship in the terribly few yaoi manga I've managed to gleefully expose myself to (and it's never enough). The seme is strong, powerful, aggressive, dominating, persistent, protective, possessive, if gentle, tender, thoughtful, and loving with his uke of choice. He's a real manly kind of man. We're talking machismo oozing out of his pores, jefe. The uke is in denial and generally runs like hell from the seme. He's usually doing the no-means-yes game. You know the one, where he's slapping away at the seme, saying, no, please, don't, stop, stop, stop, trying to get away, but he's thinking oh why can't I resist him? Why do I want him? Oh it feels so good, more, more, don't stop! Most places in the world call this date rape and usually send Mr. Seme-Pants to jail for it. Hell, we have posters all over campus featuring pix of attractive and sexy young men posing with attractive and sexy young women with captions that say things like "my strength is not for hurting her"; "I'm strong because I stopped"; "I understand that no means stop".

I read a romance novel by Catherine Creel a long time ago. It pretty much disgusted the hell out of me. I think I was 17 at the time and I got so pissed at the heroine, that I took the thing out into the backyard and burned it. Along with part of the yard and a trashbag of leaves, but we won't get into that either. I was still one of those hate-filled, angst-ridden, violent teenaged girls at the time and the amount of loathing I felt for the author and the character was disproportionate enough to reality that it still sticks with me, like, fifteen or so years later. Um. 33 - 17 =, um, 3 - 7 is -4. Shit, Nevermind. It was over a decade ago when I had the ritual burning of the book and I don't remember what I had for breakfast most days. Moving along. The heroine was one of those women that played the no-means-yes game. Looking back at it, after my years spent reading porno stories on the 'Net and exposure to people into BDSM, I've come to the conclusion that the author was writing out a rape-fantasy / nonconsensual submission fantasy or something. At 17, I think I would have gone all Cujo at the idea that there really are women out there who fantasize about being raped or dominated. I probably would have gone all Texas Chainsaw Massacre if someone had told me that there are women who actually do these things and enjoy them. I wasn't exactly "okay" back then, I don't suppose. These days, I shrug and let it go. Takes all kinds, no? As long as it's consenting adults and no one gets maimed or dead, I don't suppose it's any of my business. Topic, right. Creel's heroine ended up with her typical seme lover guy against her will. He took her, took her virginity, took everything. She was the typical fiery romance novel heroine sort on the surface, you know, the whole flashing eyes, heaving bosoms, spirited lass with a waterfall of gorgeous hair. Underneath, she was submissive as fuck. Me? I would have waited until the bastard went to sleep and then borrowed his .45 revolver and given him a lead enema (it was an American Old West romance novel with indians and cowboys and stuff). She cried herself to sleep and then cuddled him. It was okay because she was falling in love with his manly man-ness and he made her orgasm. He gave her orders and she followed them all the while wondering why she couldn't resist him, why she wanted him, and why, oh why, did it feel so good to belong to him.

A lot of romances (novels/movies/etc.) have the no-means-yes game as their basic boy/girl and/or seme/uke conflict. Well, enough do to make this a "typical" sort of scenario. She does the denial of feelings for him and he takes her despite. Not seduces. Takes.

I can't help but think about what kind of message this sends about our cultural values. I have a manga that I adore called GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka (if you're looking to check out manga, this is a great one to start with) by Tohru Fujisawa. In one of the episodes, Onizuka is on his way to interview for a position at school and rides a standing-room-only subway or bus (can't remember which) and a middle-aged pervert squeezes the cute buttock of a sweet young thing. What does she do? She cringes and doesn't react. Onizuka beats the crap out of Mr. Perv (nevermind that he was about to do the exact same thing). From what I'm given to understand, in the Japanese culture, she couldn't react to it because it would look worse for her. If some guy copped a grab on my ass on a bus in Bumfuck, Biblebelt USA, Bubba and his Redneck pals would beat the shit out of him simply because I'm female and Mr. Perv is not. Of course, I live in a land where "good" romances include the no-means-yes game.

I can say that I don't like reading the no-means-yes game very much. I don't like seeing a validation of the idea that the fuck-er can get successfully get around the lack of consent simply by being orally persistent and quick with his hands. I think I'm in a majority when I say that the idea of a seme/man seducing consent from a reluctant uke/woman is erotic and attractive. There are times when I want to be seduced into it. But, when does this become the no-means-yes game? When does "I don't really want to" go from "seduce me" to "stop"? I suppose that this is the gray area that's fraught with peril for the seducer. I know that the StudMuffin will never seduce a reluctant me. Any sign of negation has him backing off. I can't blame him for it and it's better that way for us, I believe. I'm sufficiently expressionless enough to make it difficult to tell the difference between seduce me into it and don't touch me. I think some women and uke are able to sufficiently express to their partners enough to play the seduction games, though. I think it's romantic to read about it. Sometimes it goes too far in our entertainment materials, though. While I'll never do anything about it, it bothers me sometimes.

It's been fun at casa de la Muffie lately. As we all probably are unaware of, the military pharmacy hands out the generic version of any prescription it carries unless it's been given explicit doctor's instructions not to. They're cheap that way and I can't blame 'em, actually. For the most part, I understand there's little or no difference between, say, sertraline and zoloft other than the cost. Which is okay, I guess. Anyway, so I've been on this sertraline for a while and it's been okay. The military pharmacy is, however, a good twentyish miles from my house and takes about forty-five minutes, one way, to get to, not to mention an hour or two wait to get the 'script filled. So being the boring chica that I am, I hit Walgreens on the way home with the fresh Zoloft 'script and got, you got it, Zoloft instead of sertraline. There's a big difference between the two in my system, apparently. Zoloft affects my appetite. I'm not hungry anymore, even when I forget to eat--which I do all the time. Anyway, so now I've got this cute lil blue thingy called Straterra, which the military currently doesn't carry so we have to get it at Walgreens or someplace. So, hey, convenient I guess. I dunno if Straterra affects appetite or not, but for the last four days, I haven't wanted to eat. It doesn't make me sick or anything or make me feel bad if I do, but I don't think about food at all anymore. And on the rare occasion that I do eat, it's not very much. Well, it's probably what dieticians and your average Weight Watcher cheerleader would call sensible portions, but compared to my previous grazing habits, it's not very much.

The long and short of it was that I felt like shit today. Run over, stampeded flat, full of corn meal shit. You know that feeling, most people get that way with a tequila hangover. I didn't figure it out until this afternoon when I was trying to explain to the professor why I skipped out on school today. I haven't eaten since Saturday. Actually, that would be in the wee hours of Sunday morning. It's Tuesday. At least I think it is. Yeah, Tuesday.

I feel like the world's crappiest mom now. When I don't remember to feed myself, I generally forget to feed my child. Sure, he's nine and can crack a can of Spaghettios, but I want him to eat prepared meals and actual vegetables rather than chocolate. And he's nine. He shouldn't be feeding himself. He needs to be fed by his parents because that's what parents are supposed to do. The upside is that the StudMuffin eats about twelve meals a day and usually checks to see if the bratnik is hungry whenever he makes himself anything so it's not the kid hasn't been eating. He just doesn't get traditionally prepared food unless I do it or it's breakfast.

Anyway. I'm becoming highly attached to my cell phone. I don't particularly like talking on the phone to begin with, but it's got a calender feature and a to do list feature and a really, really loud alarm. So I've now got five alarms that go off every single day that say "EAT MORON!" Of course, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. A lot of carbohydrates annoy me. I found this out when we went to Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner this evening. I love extra crispy--oink oink I'm a pig--and usually get a chicken breast and go to town. I ate a couple of bites of the fried part and skipped the rest. I ate half of the biscuit and skipped the rest. I ate exactly none of the macaroni and cheese and none of the potatoes and none of the apple pie doohicky. I did eat the green beans and mourned the lack of available lettuce at that location.

Do I want ice cream right now? No. Do I want nachos--doritoes with shredded cheese melted in the microwave? No. Do I want pesto? No. Do I want bread? No. Actually, I don't want to eat anything. I'm thirsty. Not hungry. It's been three hours since dinner and usually I have a snack about now. Usually something with lots and lots of carbohydrates. Hey, it's that time of night. This is vaguely distrubing. Of course, every cloud has a silver lining. Right? I'm going from being a two meal a day girl to a five meal a day girl with healthier food choices because "heavy" food annoys me. My metabolism is going to get out of the "stalled, in neutral, out of gas" stage into a forward moving gear because I'll actually be getting food every few hours and won't have the insulin spikes. Well, that is if I eat. The StudMuffin tends to go through all of my ready-to-eat or nearly ready-to-eat foodstuffs because he's too good godamned lazy to make his own. Bastard.

Tuesday:

Me: I've got an appointment with Dr. K tomorrow. I'm wondering if I've got ADD.
StudMuffin: Bullshit. You don't have ADD.
Me: Whatever.
StudMuffin: You don't, but whatever.


Saturday:

StudMuffin: Yeah, this new medication she's taking is messing with her. She's got ADD.
Dad: I figured. I said something about it a year ago.
StudMuffin: Yeah, I know. I told her that.
Me: {eye roll}

Muffie has been officially diagnosed with ADD. Joy. So I'm not actually a loser because I'm a loser, I'm a loser because I've got the cerebral chemical composition of a loser. The good news is that I can de-loser-fy by taking drugs. You know, that's what Alexander told me in eleventh grade, too. Who knew that "Hey, I can get out in twelve with good behavior" would have so much in common with a balding psychiatrist.

I'm not sure how I feel about this, of course. On one hand, it's an incredible relief. I have this problem that's not strictly my own personal fault and can be corrected with the proper application of medicine therapy (as they call forking over the prescription these days). In a few weeks, all of my efforts to turn myself into a responsible person who gets her homework, work, and other daily activities done in a reasonable time frame will actually pan out instead of turn into one, gigantic, never-ending failure. At least that's the theory behind taking drugs like these. Despite years and years and years of membership in the Triple Platinum Losership Club, I should be able to overcome it and be a non-loser. I will be able to read a line of text without forgetting what word I read three spaces ago. It will be safe to say that my computer won't know what to do with itself if I don't have twelve different windows open. Why do I need suprlus RAM? I fondly call it multi-tasking.

The part that I don't like is the idea that bad habits like laziness, procrastination, and unreliability can be blamed on something other than myself. I'm big on taking my fair share of the blame for whatever it is that I do wrong. The idea that I can say "It's not my fault I didn't get my essay done, Prof, I have ADD!" turns my stomach. Perhaps it's because I don't really believe that something physiological can change my destiny in that way. I control my behavior, I am in charge of my fate, I find my salvation through myself. I am responsible. To have even the slightest idea that I am not responsible or in control of my own behavior sets my teeth on edge and drives me insane. I hate it. However, I can't deny it, either. I am tied to my biology whether I like it or not. I'm a herd animal and the chemicals in my brain dictate everything that I do. If those chemicals are dysfunctional, then they will dictate that I do things dysfunctionally--whatever my opinion on the matter is.

The simple fact of the matter is that I can't concentrate. Not I won't, I can't. I blame the StudMuffin for my lack of concentration an awful lot, mostly because he's a high maintenance kind of a guy who thinks he needs to speak with me or show of his body or something at least once every quarter hour. Of course, that only works when he's awake, present, and feeling particularly insecure. The rest of the time? I sat in a library carrel, in perfect solitude, with no one disturbing me. I could not read and comprehend a sonnet in less than an hour. The StudMuffin was 75ish miles away at the time. But to say that I didn't do my work (whatever that work is) because I couldn't just goes against everything I believe about responsibility and accountability.

So, unhappily, my prescription of Straterra and I, must find some way to be "okay" with this. Right now, I'm putting the Walmart smiley face on it. I am telling myself that by seeking professional help and taking this medication, I am being responsible and accountable. Denying that this problem exists within myself just because I hate it and not seeking the appropriate professional help and not taking the appropriate prescribed medicine therapy *snerk* would be irresponsible and shirking accountibility for my behavior. I'm not fond of this rationalization at the moment. I can see truth in it, but I can't seem to get past the feeling that I'm not addressing the problem, I'm trying to find a way out of taking responsibility for it. And it sucks. You know?

I'm 33 years old and I've been diagnosed with ADD. God damn.

A refresher.

I know some of us aren't sure how to use the lj-cut tags in a journal cause you've told me. Just in case you're wondering and since I'm hiding from homework, a brief how to.

lj-cut tags help you make the entries that appear on your page in a more manageable. Like if you have a huge series of pictures or a really long story to tell or a quiz you filled out, you can put them behind what's called and lj-cut so that people can click to see them. They're in your entry, but you don't have to see them every time you load your page. This keep your pages manageable if you've got super-big pictures, too, or if you've got r-rated pictures that someone on the other end might not want to look at for thirty minutes while the husband exclaims over the photograph in every way from ooh la la to oh! porn on the net! for shame!

These are the tags:

<lj-cut text="Put wthe text you want to appear as a link in your journal">
Whatever it is you want to hide behind the LJ cut, pics, quizzes, ponderings on ballerinos, Muffie's weirdo political tendencies, what have you.
</lj-cut>

Here's the lj-cut that you type:

<lj-cut text="Click here for the speech">
Good morning... In less than an hour from now, over one hundred of you will fly north to confront an enemy more powerful than any the world has ever known. As you do so, you will be joined by pilots from around the world as they launch similar attacks against the other thirty-five ships attacking the earth. The battle you will join will be the single largest aerial conflict in the history of mankind. ...Mankind. The word takes on a new meaning for all of us today. If any good has come from this savage and unprovoked attack on our planet, it is the recognition of how much we humans share in common. It has given us a new perspective on what it means to live on this earth together. It has shown us the insignificance of our thousand petty differences from one another and reminded us of our deep and abiding common interests. The attack has changed the course of history and redefined what ut means to be human. From this day forward, it will be impossible to forget how interdependent the races and nations of the world truly are. I think that there's a certain irony that today is the Fourth of July, America's anniversary of independence. Perhaps it is fate that once again, this date will mark the beginning of a great struggle for freedom. But this time, we will fight for something even more basic than the right to be free of tyranny, persecution, or oppression. We will fight against an enemy who will be satisfied with nothing less than our total annihilation. This time we will be fighting for our right to live, for our very existence.

An hour from now, we will confront a strange and deadly adversary, an army more powerful than humanity has ever faced. I'm not going to make any false promises to you. I cannot offer any guarantee that we will prevai, but if ever there it is there were a battle worth fighting, this is it! And as I look around me this morning, I realize how extraordinarily lucky I am to be here, at this critical moment, surrounded by people like you. You are patriots in the original and truest sense of the word: people who love their home and are willing to lend their talents, skills and, in some cases, even their lives to the task of defending it. I consider it an honor to be allowed to fight alongside you, to raise my voice in chorus with yours and declare, whether we win or lose, we will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight, but struggle fiercely for what is rightfully ours, our heads held high until the very last moment.

And if we succeed... if we somehow accomplish this thing that seems so impossible, it will be the nost glorious victory imaginable. The Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when all the nations of the earth stood shoulder to shoulder and shouted: 'We will not lay down and die! We will live on! We will survive!' Today, we celebrate our INDEPENDENCE DAY
</lj-cut>

Here's what it would look like:

( click here for the speech )

Click it and you'll see a very familiar page where everything you've posted is up!

You can click the link to see what it would look like. You can put anything behind an lj-cut that you want to. Pics, links, quizzes, whatever. It'll be there, readily available, but it also keeps your friends' friend's pages easier to load.

The boundaries of my home are defined by walls. They stand, one of them a little cockeyed and pushing the patio concrete down in the corner, where it collects water that slowly saps into the strength of the 2x6 skeleton inside the wall. Between the walls is a space that's limp and dead from overuse. I think, sometimes, that the cringing walls still shudder from the sound long after it's faded away, leaving behind echoes in an air that doesn't know whether to be hor or cold.

Ladybugs collect on the ceiling and along the glass doors that face south. Beetling in the heat, some with spots too timid to show, they sit on the glass between here and open air. The breeze twitches the leaves dusting the patio and Bonehead barks, his spots shivering in excitement. He left his ball outside where the wind only whispers.

After it's gotten dark and the wind creaks through the trees, the air between the walls sighs, then lets go. Beneath my feet, Bonehead's spots lie slack and his glazed eyes watch a ball at rest inches from his nose. He moans and rolls to his side, his lips flipped up and his ear flopped over so that black on white has turned to pink. The air lies with him and everything is still.

I've discovered an interesting factoid recently. Wallyhell cotton candy contains 57 calories per serving and 2 servings (thereabouts) per container. That translates to a bucket o' cotton candy at a total cost of 114 calories. One should note that total fat is 0 grams. So now I sit here pondering the "what does this mean" question.

I've had quite some experience with this question recently. Most recently it was asked of: So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men, / And Death once dead there's no more dying then. Apparently it means that Shakespeare is horny, but damn, what's a guy to do when every time you splooge (I like that word, heheheh) you shave some time off your life? It seems that in Elizabethan times, they thought that ejaculating meant sending some of your life essence winging away into the nether. Snark. We live in enlightened times now. You don't lose life points when you cum, you lose life points when you're too busy staring at the tin bikini on the barbarian babe so the orc can sneak up behind you and whack you one. Hm. I suppose that's no so different from the Elizabethan version of the little death.

Is everything that feels and/or tastes good bad for you? Cum kills and cotton candy rots your teeth. Or something like that. I do know that in my house the average life expectancy for any piece of candy that is not carefully hidden is two hours. Five hours tops, because sometimes the Big Guy goes and plays poker. What the Big Guy doesn't gobble, the Bratchild will. And vice versa. I think the only thing that I can be sure will stick around for any length of time is spinach mushroom pizza and strawberry sugar wafers.

I've developed a pattern of, erm, deception locally that leaves me feeling a bit unhappy about myself. I don't like hiding things, particularly food. We live next to a big field and while dogs bark a lot, they're simply not effective as a front line mouse deterrent and a build of arms becomes distinctly necessary. I'd rather keep a large bag of Hershey's Kisses in the refridgerator rather than concealed in a software box for my old calculus tutoring program. The Big Guy is allergic to calculus. It gives him hay fever.

So what does it mean?

It's a conflict, really, between guttony and dishonesty. Lies versus consuming hunger. Selfishness against selfishness. Can the rhetorical man's character can be broken by so simple a thing? Yes. It's often the little things, the simplest decisions that erode integrity. For want of a nail the war was lost and all that. How honorable a person am I? It depends on how you define honor, of course. We've been taught since the first grade that when you bring a treat to class, you bring enough for everyone or save it for lunch. As young children, when we have birthdays, siblings that are close in age are often handed presents as well. What about me? It's always Marsha, Marsha, Marsha! Jan Brady manifests itself through the id and we think only of "mine".

So what does it mean?

I think it means that I hoard cotton candy. I keep it on top of my CPU, hidden safely behind the CPU door, where the Bratchild never looks. It's sealed in a plastic container so General Field Mouse will have difficulties finding it, not that such things will stop him from sending in his advance scouts. It means that I buy a second container of cotton candy and a big bag of Laffy Taffy sometimes. It means that I wish these stupid cotton candy containers were more frickin' recycleable. You know, take 'em back to Wallyhell and have them refilled.

Today, I, armed with nothing but goosepimples and sarcasm, will be sallying forth to do battle with the evil known as the speculum. The upside is that it's going to be a plastic speculum that is kept in a warming cabinet. Of course, the ice fucking cold KY jelly kind of defeats the purpose a bit, don'tcha think? To immeasurably add to my humiliation, the father-in-law will be driving me to my appointment o' doom. I will have to spend an hour and a half in this man's company after having been pried open with a plastic crowbar slathered in frozen jello. I don't understand how this man can drive the speed limit and still take half an hour longer to get there than I can take while driving below the speed limit. Does common physics not apply to his vehicle?

We've been reading Maxine Hong Kingston's Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts in class for the past few class periods. It's an interesting memoir, quite like none that I've ever read. For the most part, it hasn't been memorable for me; that would be because I haven't exactly, er, been reading it. I've got some serious amount of crap going on to do, okay, so I have a 0930 British literature class that's killing me. Not because it's literature, but because it's so freaking early in the morning. I am so not into mornings. I like staying up late, after everyone has gone to bed. The house is quiet, except for the soft breathing of the dog under my desk, and I'm free to think with my fingers sans interruption. Not that I've actually been doing any of that.

Back to Kingston. Most of what I've skimmed has actually been interesting, so I think I'll go back and read it again when the semester is over and I'm actually sleeping worth a damn. In the section entitled Shaman, she wrote something interesting that caught my eye. I find myself thinking about it at odd times, usually when I'm doing 65 mph in a 60 mph zone and the last of this year's grasshoppers are kamikaze diving against my legs.

"I don't want to hear Wino Ghosts and Hobo Ghosts. I've found some places in this country that are ghost-free. And I think I belong there, where I don't catch colds or use my hospitalization insurance. Here I'm sick so often, I can barely work. I can't help it, Mama."

Click here to see the Blast!

I rode one of these today. It's hard to tell in the picture, unless you're familiar with sport bikes and stuff, but it's dinky. Hell, I sat on it with my feet flat on the ground and my knees bent. That's, like, never happened to me before, not even on a moped. I've never ridden a moped, tho'.

Anyway, it's a little 250cc sport bike made by Buell (Harley) and therefore sucks ass in the sport bike market. But that's okay. It was my first sport bike and I had a Blast! on it. Whee! I'm easily amused and not too terribly picky about what kind of machine I fork, as long as it's not ugly (in my eyes) and I can reach both controls and the ground when I fork it. Since I've got a 28" inseam, and therefore too short for most bikes and/or controls, I really can't afford to be picky. Especially when it's demo ride day. *sigh* I wanted to ride a V-Rod, just to see, but I can't reach the forward controls. Bastards.

I've concluded that I don't actually need a sport bike because I don't actually need speeding tickets. It's odd, ya know. I've developed a sense of responsibility (barely) and I'm choosing to stick my 883. (Harley Davidson Sportster, Custom). All I have to do is fiddle with the power *snicker* plant and it has all the pep I need, though it wouldn't win any races. Well, any races against inline engines. It'll blow the average V-Twin away. Girly bike indeed.

The thing about purchasing a new bike is that dealers pretty much won't let you test drive them unless you're going to buy it. The other thing about purchasing a new bike is that you can't tell what you'd like to buy until you've ridden it. You just can't tell if the bike handles for you just by sitting on it and comparison shopping for a Harley? Shya. Dream on. So, Harley came up with this uber intelligent doohickey they call "Demo Rides". They have a stable of Harleys and Buells (carried on two big rigs) that travels the country and sets up for a weekend to let people in the area ride whatever bike they want. You get a good 15 miles in both city and highway sorts of conditions so you can really feel the bike out. That's how I came to ride the Blast! The Father in law went with an Electraglide. He didn't like it. Too big. The StudMuffin wanted to ride the 650 Buell (God only knows why, he's been cussing the brand for years now), but they were by appointment only and booked solid. And he didn't want to ride the 250 just like pretty much no one wanted to ride the "kiddie bike".

I am soooooo tired. We rode our own personal bikes to the tune of a 300 mile round trip not including time spent doing demo ride stuff (Did you know that the Triumph and BMW dealerships aren't at all anal about test rides>).

I'm going to quit now. I'm not coherent anymore.

I haven't been here in so long, I forgot how to navigate my own blurty. Muffie is such a loser. What have I been doing? Not much. Quite literally. I don't think I'll get into it because while it's not necessary boring, per se, it involves a highway and a Harley-Davidson 883 Sportster and something about seratonin and, well, 115,000 dollars. Shriek! Yes.

I'm doing more or less okay these days (for those lovely folks who missed me). Hiya claudius! Ginger, my sweet!

Am I back to Blurty? Dunno. I'm entirely too lackadaisical these days which is so not cool for an over-achieving perfectionist such as myself.

I did miss my friends at Blurty despite my utterly annoying and completely hateful lethargy. I even failed an English class through my own devices. My gawd, Muffie failed a literature class?

Anyway. I'm not that interesting at the moment. I've had about three hours of sleep in the last thirty-six, two chai lattes (instant variety), and the StudMuffin is out shopping (which makes me incredibly nervous).

I had to turn off the ol' winamp for this. It's uber annoying.

( Transcendentalism )

"When you utter the name of Buddha, wash your mouth out." Zen is individualistic, and so iconoclastic and antinomian in its individualism that it will seem irreverent to many Westerners; but this is only because Zen wishes to strip the individual naked in order to return him to himself: in the end he cannot lean even upon the image of Buddha.