The 2011 Southeastern Mad Dash, Pt. 1

Let me begin by saying that my first red-eye flight was not what I expected, but I should have known. It was crowded, crammed, late to board, and I didn’t sleep a wink.

More travel joy awaited in ATL. Ah, Hartsfield. Thou certainly art a ring of Dante’s hell unto thyself. Has anyone ever, ever, ever connected to a flight through ATL via Delta and NOT had something go wrong? In this case, my connecting flight was delayed by a couple of hours, but it was all very up in the air (soooooooo punny!) and I needed to probably not leave the Gate Area. You know. Justincase.

Well, a two hour layover turned into four, and cost me over a hundred dollars. The little devils put a foot massage/facial place right in that terminal. Crafty bastards. I was feeling out of sorts at the beginning of the trip. This feeling would persist, and get worse by degrees, throughout.

When I arrived in the Tarheel State, no one was there to greet me. Turns out my Great Uncle had been dispatched at the last minute to retrieve me. Did I have his cellphone? Can you page someone multiple times and never get them? Can two people somehow fail to meet in an airport smaller in width than a football field? How many relayed phone calls does it take to get someone to meet you at the ticketing counter? I leave you to ponder these timeless questions of the cosmos on your own. Just know that I know the answer.

By adopting the Turtle/Ostrich style of Kung Fu (standing really still in one place), I was eventually retrieved and driven out to my relatives place. 

Before I even hit the main house we had to stop by “the barn.” Seems my almost 80 year old Great Unk had “a few spare weeks” and had decided to redo the interior. He fitted the whole thing up as a guest house.

He used juniper, which smells like a mixture of cedar and perhaps some type of Douglas fir or Spruce.

That’s right. This guy gets more stuff done in three weeks than I could in three months. You could give me 3 years and I wouldn’t be able to rig something up by then. He also built, essentially by himself, the other structures on the property. The main house has tongue in groove ceilings.

He also does stuff just for fun, like building a miniature version of the house “for the kids.”

Crap, that thing is better constructed than half the apartments I’ve lived in.

So go on ahead and take a moment to feel worthless. It’s okay. I certainly do, every time I visit. I’m not even going to show the pix of “the garage” with the various Model T cars that he refurbishes and drives around. It would be absolutely disgusting, if he weren’t so damn cool.

Well, after arriving and being unable to eat—(which was a BIG mistake and should indicate how whacked out I was. You ALWAYS eat. ALWAYS. Failure to eat is tantamount to running around nekkid or using the living room as a toilet. It is simultaneously insulting and indicates an obvious mental deficiency. You are both crazy and rude)—my Great Aunt mentions that my Unk or maybe somebody might need to pick my cousin up from school.

She says this in a peculiar way, and I realize something is afoot. I offer my chauffeuring services and away we sail in the boat that passes for her car.

While in the car it comes out. “Well, Cousin X was supposed to pick you up from the airport, but he couldn’t. He’s in jail. We sent Cousin Y over with the bail money, but we haven’t heard from him or her since. I haven’t quite told Great Unk, but we probably need to go on ahead and pick up Cousin X’s kid, since he may still be in jail right about now.”

I would like to pause here and note that Cousin X is actually one of the good cousins. So while this is some ways very typical of this part of my family, it is also a bit unexpected. My only question was “What do we say to the kid?” The reply was “He’s held up on business.” Not a lie. We just weren’t going to mention that it’s the sort of business that becomes a matter of public record and what not.

Well, as it so happens, my Aunt has left her cell phone at home and what do you know? The young teen we are to retrieve is no where to be found at the school pick up spot. A sketchy source tells us, “Oh, she walked.” Being miles from either her mom or dad’s, it’s highly unlikely she walked all the way home. 

This is the beginning of what I like to think of as the “Pedo NASCAR Rally.” My Aunt and I looped back and forth between the connected parking lots of the middle and high school, looking for signs of the kid. In the big white car, cruising super slow, passing the school's sheriff’s car, I was sure we were going to get pulled over. I mean, who cruises the high school parking lots right before school gets out? Pedophiles and drug dealers, that’s who. The only way it could have looked worse was if my Aunt was instead a scraggly bearded and bandana sporting redneck and we were driving an Econoline vine.

In between making these endless, skeevy looking loops and driving up and down the highway and checking gas stations, I’m trying to help my Aunt use my cell phone to call the house and see if any of our key players have checked in. After a few moderately insane conversations with my Uncle, I gently suggest that she have him retrieve the desired phone numbers out of her rolodex, so that we can call people directly. (I don't usually like to jump into the complicated intricacies of spousal communication, but we were getting nowhere fast). Of course we can’t get the digits for the kid in question, but we get her sister, her stepfather, and a few others.

I finally park and several incredibly painful phone call attempts later, I take the phone, dial the sister, and finally connect. She has no idea who I am. I say, “Hi, this is your cousin, Hawk. Here’s Great Aunt.” Turns out the kid in question had made her way to the sister’s car, and was waiting for the high school to let out so she could catch a ride home. Alas, Cagney and Lacey we were not. As we pulled out onto the main road to go home, who should call but Cousin X?

At this point, I’ve been up for approximately 32 hours straight, and I answer the phone with a jaunty, “So, the man of the hour! Got any new boyfriends?”

And to prove that he really is one of the good cousins, he laughed and showed up later to take me out for sushi and sake. I think it’s fair to say we both needed a little nip by about 6 that night, anyways.

On our way out we passed my mom and little bro, just driving up from the Gulf Coast. I was such a zombie that I didn’t even think about it till he said, “Are you gonna be in trouble for driving right by your momma who hasn’t seen you for months and months?” My mom’s general awesomeness is well documented on this blog, so I knew I was basically okay. But still.

I think that day ended around midnight or one in the morn. A little post dinner visiting on my Aunt’s couch, and then off to the bunkhouse to sleep badly and have the strangest dream about Kevin Costner, of all people.

Next installment: cousins of exponential relations, questionable farming practices, and more food than you could shake a stick at!

To Be Continued. . .

Oh faithful readers and true believers, what can I say? I sit down to uncork the bottle of The Incredible Southeast Homebrew Tour, and find the brew may be too strong, the tale too much in the telling.

The truth is, I could probably write a novella about the ten day trip I just took. It could at least be an extended serial in a magazine or something. Not that much happened, but describing all the nothing that did happen—the small meaningless pockets of randomness that define my life—that always seems to take forever. And really, does anybody care but me? I don’t mean that in a self pitying way. But the minutiae and dregs of other’s lives are usually not very interesting to others.

At that point though, I might as well not blog at all.

I did try to break it up into pieces and parts, to post as I went, but the Interwebz was unavailable, and my initial ramblings got eaten and lost in the mysterious ether of my iPad. There’s something to that—to losing a written account. I don’t know if others suffer from this, but it is sometimes very hard for me to rewrite something, to replace lost text. 

It’s a combination of feelings. Part of it being the energy and spontaneity that’s only present in that first attempts, sadly absent in subsequent tries. The other is the exorcism-like quality of writing: once you’ve put it down, you’ve released it, expunged it. Good or bad, it’s out there, and recalling it past that point is an act of summation, drawing out, calling forth, which seems monumental in energy expenditure and impossible in relation to fealty to detail.

All of which is a long winded and laborious way of saying I’m rather too lazy to have to rethink that which I’ve already set down at least once.

However, there are pictures! And I torment you so with endless text that it would seem unfair no to include an illustrated tome here and there.

So, it’s decided then. Forthcoming will be at least one account, with illustration, of my recent ramblings and travels. Stand by, sportsfans. 

I Don't Know Why You Say Hello, I Say Goodbye

Just a quick check in and apology to any of my regular (or irregular, I'm not that familiar with your fibre intake) followers and cohorts in the blog-o-sphere. I'm about to be off on a trip, and my recent time has been filled with all that crap you do that isn't the insane that gets done the two hours before you leave.

I'm afraid I haven't kept up with others, but maybe on this trip I'll have a moment or two and some free wi-fi to filch, and I can.

On paper it looks like a long stretch, and it's more than a week. But the reality is, by the time you factor in travel (3 days worth, total), the different locations, and everyone's varying schedules, it will be a novelty if I see someone more than once. There are a few people that will definitely see me for several days, whether they like it or not. But that's more circumstance than actual planning.

I expect to arrive home Easter Sunday feeling a lot more like the pre-risen Christ. Would that be unleavened Jesus? Wow, I guess he really *was* Jewish. At least until that moment.

The only miracles I'm looking for right now involve my friend's little grey kitten, may she recover from a car hitting her. I'll throw in that a cessation to these cramps and associated symptoms would be nice. Other than that, I will spend this trip trying to mindful of the gift of time it allots with some relatives, while simulteneously not trying to fret about time, timing, and all things related.

My first red eye flight--and it's not even a straight shot! I call foul. Wish me luck. And wish me a sudden overwhelming sense of forbearance--not for my sake, but for others.

Above all things, keep it smooth.

I hope I get to spend some time with my sister. I hope I get to sit in the sun. I hope I get to sleep some.

Keeping Thy Wits About Thee

(Google Analytics has returned the following analyses to me from my immense fanbase: "Tw2o manee werdsz, not enuff pickshurs!" To put things right, please accept this entry)

Tis a dangerous world we live in. I received the following from a dear and concerned friend, and wanted to pass it along.

Be careful out there, kids.

Just in case there's any confusion on where I stand, politically, on this subject matter:

Approximately One Hour, Mostly In Simple Senses

• The noise of the street is already great, even though it's early afternoon. 
• I park the car and walk into the repair shop, which has television chatter, many mechanics flitting about, customers everywhere, the phone is ringing. A nice man talks to me, forgets me, and then remembers me. There is the heavy, heavy smell of vulcanized, processed rubber. It's a smell that is at once dirty but also fresh and new. 
• Walking down the street a few blocks, the smell of the Salvadoran food truck spreads for over half a block. Hungry or not, it's enticing. How can it overpower all the exhaust and asphalt and people? 
• The sun is warm, and I again wonder if the nature of the light here is somehow different, somehow stronger and more immediate. 
• The wind is chilly, especially in the shade and shadows between buildings. I feel my hair blow sideways and criss cross and know I will look a madman before this brief trip is over.
• An older woman waits at the crosswalk with me. When our light comes up, I am halfway across the divided street at and the island before she is even 3 feet from the curb. I look back, several times. I don't think I can help her. If I offer to carry her bags she will likely think I've thieving in mind. I trust the gods of pedestrian traffic timers to get her across safely. 
• The store has no smells,  and this part of the street is always dark this time of day. The shop seems that it should be oozing medicine: camphor and eucalyptus and menthol. The man in front of me has a small arsenal of vitamins for purchase, garish labels of orange and orange-yellow on a brown plastic bottle that is probably supposed to pass for old fashioned glass, but doesn't. 
• I buy a soda, more from habit than anything else. But it's cold and that's nice. A sip or two before the walk back.
• The furniture store is cramped, stuffed with sun faded floor samples. I wish I had come here and bought one of these smaller futons. The shop owner is polite, but seems weary. I bet she's ready to go home.
• Passing the food truck again. Maybe I should have waited and purchased a drink from them, just for the chance to stand a little closer and savor whatever dubious recipes are boiling on their hotplates.
• But it can't compete with the smell of the new tires, grease, oil--a vague smell of too hot metal in the back. It's a few minutes more, and at first I stand, leaning over a salacious magazine. 
• Suddenly, I am very weary. I settle  into a plastic chair that is requisite level of discomfort for these establishments. My pants don't fit correctly, because my pockets are filled with things that should be in my car, but aren't for the moment.
• A young girl sits next to me. She's largely unadorned, and has the pretty freshness of youth and good skin. While skimming through another magazine I use my infallible secret opening line.
• We've both recently relocated from the South. She tells me her hometown, and I ask her if she's ever heard the lovely Mason Jennings song of the same name.
• She is a Psych major and as fate would have it, our favorite PSY course is the same: Forensic. I recommend a book, we chat about sociopaths. I'm having one of my moments of conversational brilliance, because she leaves and comes back and our convo picks up without a missed beat. 
• My car is ready and I must go. We part and exchange names in that strange, backwards way life somehow works out sometimes. 
• I ask the repairman to give it to me straight, change my mind, and ask him to lie to me. He tells me they have placed 8 new tires on my car, three of which are already bald. I tell him I'm thrilled to finally have an all terrain vehicle. These words flow out of my mouth, but I could be anybody, anywhere, anytime. 
• I drive home with no radio, no iPod, listening and feeling for any changes in the ride with the new tire. I know it's my imagination, but it looks so much bigger than the others. I am mostly distracted by the sound of an engine in the traffic ahead of me--it sounds exactly like my old Honda did when in Reverse. I cannot determine which car is making this amazing noise. My gut tells me it's not the SUV.

Suddenly, I'm weary again. Goodnight.

Why Would Someone Hate Doctors?

or

~Healthcare In America Is An Oxymoronic Term, As It Is An Industry That Does Nothing Proactive For Health, Nor Does It Encourage Empathy Or Investments In Its Patients: 

Id Est, There Is Little Health And Less Care~

Let us propose a hypothetical situation, you and I:

1. One moves to a new town and goes about the business of retaining new medical personnel b/c these people are required to get prescriptions and sleep in the devil's bed of big pharma, which is neck in neck with financial institutions and insurance of any kind for sheer Cruelty Through Indifference and Mafioso Style Business.
2. Because one has done this for years, one attempts to have all records and such delivered to a General Practitioner, and show up with background details established.
3. One sees the GP. Scrips are filled. Referrals are made. There is much rejoicing.
4. Three months later, one calls in a scrip refill. One is told an office visit is required. Why? There is no logical reason. Blood is never drawn. Tests are never taken. Occasionally blood pressure is recorded. Financial motive? Hrm. 
5. One takes time off from work for the inevitable two hour appointment for 10 minutes of the doctor's time. 
6. Doc says, "Why are you here?" One might reply, "Office said I had to to get scrip refill." Doc replies, "Oh no, I wanted to follow up about that lump on your thyroid."
7. One says, "What lump?"
8. Records are shuffled about, and lo and behold--an ultrasound from over seven months ago revealed a nodule. One's previous doctor never bothered to advise on the results of this test. Whoops. Current MD feels this is a matter which might require some attention, esp considering the family history of thyroid and throat cancers, as well as other thyroid diseases. One's family is literally lousy with such cases. Doc orders tons of blood tests and a PET, to prepare for visit with a specialist.
9. Specialist cannot see one for about 5 or 6 weeks, but at least one is getting all the necessary leg work done in the interim.
10. The day before the PET scan, the testing lab calls. Apparently, one's insurance (may all their policymakers roast in slowly rotating spits in eternal hellfire and damnation), refuses the test as "unnecessary." Several phone calls later and a frank conversation with the facility directory, one discovers that is code for "This test cost too much and we will only perform after we have performed at least three previous tests, all of which are more invasive and less informative." Out of pocket cost for test is $4K, cash or check only. 
11. Test is canceled. Original GP refuses to request more tests, referring all future items to upcoming specialist visit.
12. One spends four weeks wondering if one has cancer. Logically, probably not, since cancer associated with lymphatic systems are usually immensely swift, and had one had such a problem for over nine months, one would likely have dropped dead by now. 
13. Appointment with specialist arrives. More time off from work. Specialist has one wait for 1.5 hours in cramped, unairconditioned waiting room, then sees one for about five minutes in her office. Amazingly, despite several calls and releases and follow ups by the patient (oneself), not all of the records have been transferred to the specialist. 
14. Specialist spend half of the five minutes trying to get the secretary on the phone to get the records. The other portion is spent dismissing the current diagnosis and treatment, stating that despite all physical evidence to the contrary, the patient has too much thyroid, and claiming the patient needs to be off meds. When patient asks why a hyper state was created by the application of unneeded meds, and points out the symptoms of lack of necessary hormone, doctor waves it off. "Your symptoms are probably just depression."
15. One is staggered to learn that depression can cause water retention, weight gain, lack of response to diet and exercise, etc, etc, etc. What an enlightened doctor. One is comforted that the doctor has so thoroughly examined the patient's records to realize that extensive medical treatments for depression did not alleviate any of these symptoms, and that in fact former doctors were in search of an organic cause outside of the brain. One thinks these thoughts while awash in acidic sarcasm. If only acidic sarcasm could drip onto those around you.
16. Doctor announces it's time to get naked, because, really, what's a trip to the doctor without a humiliating turn in a paper vest, with pokes and prods that no one told you was coming.
17. Doctor Specialist orders a follow up test, and advises patient to seek out more specifics on the kinds of cancers the family has. And to quit taking current meds. It would seem that unlike other lymphatic cancers, thyroid is slow growing. And only about 5% of growths are malignant. Doctor Specialist will see you gain in three months. So, wean oneself off of meds, hope your thyroid still functions, and if you have cancer maybe you will hear from her sooner. Her last name is Geola. Despite what the appointment card says, one will not be following up with her on this matter. 
18. One makes an appointment, and takes more time off from work to go get more lab tests done. Alas, but not surprisingly, the test is inconclusive. The will not biopsy a mass smaller than 1 cm. Mass is .7 cm. How does this compare to former scan? Who knows? And more to the point, who cares to know? None of the medical practitioners mentioned so far.

So where does that leave one? With a couple of months of frantic negotiations, time off from work, immense stress, extra medical bills  ($1K in blood tests alone) and a final analysis of: insurance doesn't pay for tests beyond what's been done. One probably doesn't  have cancer, statistically speaking, and the docs will check back in 3 or 4 months down the road. All the other concerns related to the thyroid are obviously not about the thyroid, as the specialist was able to surmise with partial records and a five minute review.

So, thanks for playing along. You probably don't have anything, but we don't feel compelled to test any further. Thanks for letting us put the idea of fatal disease into your head and then not address it any further. Oh, and thanks for letting us dismiss any of your other concerns in favor of the Big C, which was a notion we created in the first place.

If only this story were unique, singular. If only I could not tell you, from my own anemic collection, seven different stories that followed the same arc, same plot, same ending.

They say depression is anger without enthusiasm. I say depression is the best thing that ever happened for the medical industry. Outside of cigarettes. Because it's a catch all non-diagnosis that has the benefit of actually manifesting. If you aren't depressed and defeated at the start of your dealings with the medical industry, you will be by the mid point. And that's to their benefit, for in addition to getting to dismiss you, they also know you don't have the energy to pimp slap their sorry, smug, disgusting little asses into the next time zone. It usually takes all your fortitude just to make it through the torturous testing processes that are invariably inconclusive. Then you crawl off and just lie on your couch, recovering from the near apoplectic state you've been hovering in for weeks or months. 

You're too exhausted to do what is healthy and normal, which is smack the ever living shit out of these pompous assholes, demand a refund AND get your parking validated.

These people are vile. Vile in their indifference. Vile in their insensitivity. Vile in their daily flaunting and opposition of their basic, fundamental oath. You don't care about people, that's fine. Just don't call yourself a fucking doctor while lining your pockets with kickbacks from whatever the drug rep was in your office about this week. Call yourself what you are: a pusher and a vulture and class discriminators.  Or to shorten it up: pieces of shit. 

And now, for a story that wills surprise absolutely no one, over to you, Jim:

It's a brief article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110401/ts_yblog_thelookout/future-jobs-wont-support-decent-living-standard-report

Too long? Let me sum up: Future wages won't support the minimum requirements for a decent standard of living in America.

I have two primary comments to this incredible study.

Comment One: Dear Financial Fucktards, current wages don't support minimum requirements for a decent standard of living in America.

Comment Two: O Mighty Economic Gurus,

Concerning the genesis of this statistic:

To achieve economic security, a single parent with two children needs an income of just over $30,000 a year--nearly twice the federal minimum wage--while a two-income household needs almost $68,000.

1. I don't know anyone now who could support two children on $30K a year. Where in America is that possible? Are you factoring in government support for social programs that are always being cut? Or is this an actual estimation of net (you can't possibly mean gross) earnings that make this achievable? Where is this magical place? Is gasoline not almost $4/gal there? Does a carton of milk not cost $4.75? Tell us, tell us this wondrous land, so that we may all flock to it.

2. When you make up these figures, do you take turns pulling them out of each other's asses? Or is each person responsible for extricating the tomfoolery from their own anus?

3. You do realize that if you do drugs, you are supposed to bring enough for everyone, right? So next time you decided to hit some rock and bang out some cracked out theories, make sure you mail some shit to EVERYONE. That way we can all giggle right along with you, you myopic, self indulgent, bromidic little bastards.