Still more of nothing

So it's been over a week since the doctor's office called saying that they were setting up appointments to get an MRI and an appointment with an ENT. We still have heard nothing regarding either appointments and no calls from the doctor. Again. I guess I just don't understand the reasons that the doctor's office is dicking us around like this. Especially since, you know, the US has the greatest healthcare system in the world. Somehow, I think if I did live in a place with 'socialized medicine' all of these problems would have been taken care of long ago. Fuck all the morons that say that we don't need any healthcare reform and that they don't want 'Obamacare'. Fuck you all with a rusty rake sideways. Stop using all of the government's 'socialized' resources. Send back that income tax refund you got. Send back those medicare, medicaid, and social security checks. That's socialism so do the right thing and don't participate. Same thing with unemployment. That's something that everyone pays into to help them if they lose their job. Don't accept a check, hell, don't even sign up for it. Get off your lazy ass and get a new job.

Anyway. I am so sick of this bullshit that I want to scream. If I make the phone call to the doctor, unfortunately, I'm certain there won't be a doctor anymore because I'm not known for being polite when I'm pissed. I don't feel sorry about being that way either. It's just best that I don't make the call, though I'd very much like to just to see what the excuse for making two phone calls, that would take a total of five minutes at the most, taking over a week with no response. Fuck all you teabagging motherfucking morons. You know nothing about what it's like to not have any coverage for medical issues. Fuck you and your cushy little lives. I hope that you go through something just as bad one of these days. And you get no help from the medical community.

Very interesting...

So I was fiddling around looking at my newsfeeds and usual torrent sites when I know shows I watch are coming out. I had already gotten this week's W episode and was looking for Sunday's Fullmetal Alchemist and noticed that TV-Nihon had picked up a new series. I didn't look at the file size of the download or even know what the show was about. I thought I would look up and see if there were any trailers on YouTube or anything. Well... the entire first episode is there, with subs. It's under six minutes long. It's basically a cell series, or a series meant to be watched only on cell phones. It's very interesting. Also, it gives me a new reason to shout "Onore Dickedo!" because one of the actors is Decade from Kamen Rider Decade. Oh well, at least it made me laugh when I saw him. And ShinkenRed is in it too. Oh shi- IXA's in it too. Then again, I thought IXA was a dick through most of Kiva. And Kai from Den-O (lulz) is in it too. It could be very interesting and subs for a show under six minutes in length shouldn't take that long. Anyway, here's the entire episode.

Monday Music

I listen to music constantly. I enjoy most music with the exception of country and western. Country music sets my teeth on edge and annoys the fuck out of me. Why? I don't know. It could be the nasally fucking whiny twang that all country singers try to pull off, even if they don't have any kind of accent. That grates on my nerves more than anything under the sun. The songs seem to be either depressing songs about losing your _____ (insert noun here ie. dog, woman, job... etc.). Or drinking. Or how said singer is a no good cheat, or singer's man or woman is a no good cheater. I never have liked country music and there is a rule in my car and house. Any kind of music is fine, as long as it isn't country or western. There is an exception, but it's not really country. It is funny.



I guess that one other type of music annoys me. And that is any female that sings with a fucking little girl voice. It's just as annoying as fucking country music. Especially the ones that fucking sing with acoustic guitars and put on the air headed girly-girly act. I actually want to shove something pointy into my ears to make them bleed when I hear this type of music. I won't put any examples up. I refuse to look for them. I would rather eat my own vomit than listen to that type of music. I don't find it humorous, endearing, or fucking cute. It makes me angry. Probably because my sister B puts on this girly-girly act. Or she used to. She's getting older and it's probably getting harder to pull off. Here is a wonderful example of anti-airhead. And yes, this is an all female band.



I love me some Tool. I have since I first heard them years ago. My favorite song is still Sober. Vicarious takes a close second. I don't know why, but I love both songs. Maynard has a good voice and they always have interesting videos.



In the past couple of years I've been getting into Japanese rock, Visual Kei, and Darkwave/techno. If you want to see something different, you'll have no problem finding it. In particular, I've come to enjoy GPKISM quite a bit. They are definately Darkwave/techno and could also be classified as Visual Kei.



I'm not real big on Pop music or top 40 stuff in general. It's not that I can't stand it. It's just disposable music. It's fine if it's on the radio, I could care less what plays on the radio at work most of the time. It's like junk food. It's something that's not really what I would consider a meal, just something to distract me until I can have a meal. It's something that kills the silence and the constant sounds of traffic outside the building. Some of what I listen to is considered Visual Kei and could be considered Pop at the same time. In the end though, it's not so much Pop like I'm used to and more VK than anything. A perfect example of this is An Cafe. They're hyper and have catchy tunes that will stick with you.



Some of the music that I listen to, my husband picks up on right away because it's been an opener or a closer for one of the animes or tokus that I watch. He's like, "I know that song." It happens quite a bit and sometimes I find new music from watching the shows. Not always though. Abingdon Boys School have done several opening songs for anime. I heard them for the first time however on a BUCK-TICK album, doing a cover of one of BUCK-TICK's songs. They do songs in both English and Japanese, so it's interesting.



I like older stuff too, not just newer stuff. I like Dir en grey's older stuff and newer stuff. They don't go through all the trouble that they used to with the costumes and make up like they used to. I'm glad that you can actually walk into somewhere like Best Buy and pick up their albums and not have to order them somewhere for outrageous amounts of money because it's an import. I'm also glad that they've been touring here too. I'm hoping to catch them the next time they come to the States.



I would be remiss if I did not put at least one sappy song on here. This is one of my favorite Malice Mizer videos. It's got amazing amounts of detail in their costumes and the song is quite sad and so is the video.



It's also one of my favorite Malice Mizer songs, so how about the live version from their Merveilles concert. You gotta love the theatrics of Visual Kei.

It's nice to know that you CAN fix stupid sometimes.

Over the weekend, I committed a faux pas at work. I disagreed, though argued would be more appropriate, with a resident. Here at work, we're told that we are not to argue with the residents and to mindlessly agree with them regardless of what they are saying. Sadly, there are times when I cannot in let things slide. When I hear blatant idiocy, I have to speak up.

Now this particular resident isn't of the elderly sort. He's an individual with a host of medical problems, and he is an intelligent individual who I have butted heads with before on occasion about some things that he has said that are complete and utter bullshit, but he believed with all his heart was true. Like how carbon dating is complete and utter shit. He cannot tell me why this is, but because at one point in time, someone told him that it was, he believed it. He believes in woo. He's also a christian. I don't hold any of that against him and most of the time we have long and interesting conversations about science and books, particularly science fiction.

I happened to be reading an article about some quackery on a page and he asked what I was reading about. I told him about the author of the page, who is a cancer researcher. That's when he snorted derisively and said "Well, all cancer is a lack of B vitamins." I started laughing. Pretty much that was just the most wootastic thing I had heard all day. I told him in no uncertain terms that no, cancer was not caused by a lack of vitamins, otherwise people who took daily supplements would never get cancer. He refused to believe as I told him that his reasoning was incorrect and unsupported by any facts. He snorted again and said, "I have a book. I'll show it to you." I told him that you can't believe everything that you read. He then said "You wouldn't believe a doctor?" I told him that doctors can lie just like everyone else. He went to eat dinner.

In the 15 minutes that it took him to eat, I had pulled up one doctor that had claimed cancer was caused by a lack of B vitamins. Unfortunately this was not the "doctor" he was referring to. The gentleman that I brought up had a medical education. The one he was talking about had gotten his "degree" from a religious diploma mill in Oklahoma. A trip to Quackwatch and a run down of the so-called doctor's treatment and "vitamin B" which is not a vitamin at all but a derivative of cyanide made him blink in surprise. Each of his illusions about this man and his "cure" were demolished and dealt with quickly and with little reaction but complete astonishment on his part. He actually thanked me for taking the time to enlighten him on what being skeptical about things does for one's self. He wasn't angry at all that I had called him on something that he had blindly believed for years. He was quite pleased and asked for the location of the information that we had found. I wrote down the URL for him and then he asked for the locations of a few astronomy articles we had talked about earlier in the day.

You can combat ignorance with intelligence sometimes and in the end it's rewarding. I was glad that I was able to open his eyes to skeptical thinking somewhat. Now if only he would do as such when telling me that it was fact that there has been one person that lived for over a thousand years, Methulsalah. My ever so eloquent retort was, "Pics or it didn't happen." He's never tried that tack with me again.

Greatest Medical System in the World, Really?

I am so sick of hearing how the United States has the greatest medical system in the world. I call bullshit on that. Why do I call bullshit on that? For the mere fact that it has taken a doctor's office almost 2 weeks to call back with results for an ultrasound. 2 weeks you say, no, you must be joking, no doctor would wait that long when someone has been rapidly losing weight, vomiting constantly, running very high fevers more than once a day. Surely no such thing like that would happen at all. Especially when that person has repeatedly called said office, asking to be given information about the results and just shunted over to that doctor's voice mail. That would never happen in this country, where the greatest medical system in the world is located, right? Right?

The fuck it doesn't.

The results of said ultrasound couldn't have been that pressing. I mean, they only set up an appointment for a CAT scan and with an ENT. There was nothing pressing about those results. CAT scan, that's you know, not the sign of something serious. It's a normal procedure that everyone has if they have a sniffle, right? Right? No doctor would let a patient go that long, especially when they said three weeks ago, they were going to get said person on an antibiotic... and then nothing more about that mystery antibiotic was spoken of again. No medicine. No test results. No word at all. Best fucking medical system in the world, huh? Bullshit.

Twits

So it's Monday again. Not been a terribly bad day, nothing outstanding or exciting, which is fine by me. I have 2 more hours to go in my 12 hour shift and everything has been fine. I've noticed that I've been picking up some fundies on the old Twitter, which is fine. I don't mind the fundies as long as they don't shove it in my face. I don't understand why they feel the need to follow someone who describes their self as an atheist in hopes of being able to change their mind about what they believe in. Most people that are atheists have taken quite a long time to decide that all the mythologies in the world are bullshit and there are far better explanations for life. They probably wouldn't mind if atheists followed them and sought to convince them, they'd see it as working to change the minds of non-believers.

I won't follow them back. I don't care to. I see no point in it. If they want to interact with me however that's fine, but when you start pressing the bullshit on me, don't expect me to be nice. I'm not. I can be ugly and hateful and infuriating. Like with all things, there is no such thing as a fair fight and if you're going to try and corner me into believing you brainwashed Middle Eastern goatherder fantasies you're in for a rude awakening. I'm cruel and hateful and can push buttons that people don't want pushed. If you're civil that's fine, but don't shovel the shit on me, I get annoyed. This new batch has nothing on some of the old ones. There was one that was following me because she was convinced that she could change peoples minds. I did not follow her. I saw no need to. She took offense to some of my bible quotes and said that I had threatened to rape her. Funny that, I never saw a single one of her Tweets and I didn't care to. Hard to threaten to rape someone when 1) I don't have a dick. 2) I could give a shit less what she thinks, nor did I take my precious 30 seconds to find out. Apparently she does this kind of thing often. There are lots of crazy fundies on the old Twitter. There are even more drama whores, but that is neither here nor there. We'll see what this new batch of fundies are like. It might be lulz.

The Masks We Wear

I've been thinking a lot this week about several things. One of them is the fact that we all have different faces we show people. Most of us don't like to entangle our private lives with our work life and so on, so we all have a different mask we wear according to each situation we happen to be in at the time. There are things that you can say to your friends that you might never say to your family. There are things you would say to your lover that you would never say to your co-workers. This week, I've been worrying about my husband and how that mask I wear at work, slips every once in awhile and it's hard to keep it on when everyone has noticed just how sick my husband is.

I don't like for my work life to be entangled with my home life and I take great pains to seperate those things, especially since my husband and I both work at the same place. We both do different jobs and we were together before we started working there. It's been hard though. He's worked 2 half days in the past 3 weeks. Financially that worries me, but I'm more concerned with his well being than anything. He argued with me about the fact that he swears he's not been losing weight, but the scale said he's lost 10 pounds since last week. He's at the hospital right now getting an ultrasound on his throat. I'm anxious and worried. I'm not sure what to do. I feel like I need to get in touch with his daughter and let her know what's going on, but really, I think she'd freak if she got a message from me via Facebook that her dad is really sick. I don't think he's told her. I don't think he's told anyone about it and he's pretty mum to me as well. He's not a person that has an easy time talking about how he's feeling and it's really frustrating sometimes and we have fought over it. Not because he doesn't talk, he retreats and suffers alone, afraid that I'm going to call him worthless because he's depressed and worrying about things. I try to reassure him that I'm not going to say something like that. We've been through too much shit together since 1996 to just walk out because of something like depression.

This isn't depression though. He is physically sick and I worry. I don't sleep well anyway and this is making it worse. I'm not about to tell him that however, he's always trying to make sure I'm feeling all right. Hopefully they find something out today something actually gets done instead of these endless appointments that do nothing but burn the gas in my car. I won't know until he gets home.

So I try to distract myself with games and music and books. It's always in the back of my mind though. It's what makes me wake up in the middle of the night to make certain he's still breathing. It's what has my stomach upset most of the time. There's not much I can do until the doctors actually do something besides scheduling another appointment. It's not healthy for a person to lose 10 pounds in a week. It's not healthy for a person to run a fever one or more times a day, for weeks at a time. But there's nothing I can do right now. Nothing at all. Greatest healthcare system in the world my ass. He's had a trip to the ER and several doctor's appointments and nothing has been done. Absolutely nothing. It makes me not only upset and worried but very angry.

But there's nothing I can do but wait. Angry, upset, worried or not. Nothing will change the fact that I am powerless in this situation. There is nothing I can do at all but be here for him. I work to make certain we have money coming in. And every minute of the day that I'm at work, I'm worrying about him. If he's all right. If he's resting. If he's throwing up again and feverish or collapsed and no one is there to help him at all. And I work for 12 hours at a time. Some weeks I work 60 hours. What can my cats do if he were to collapse and needs help? And it goes on. I create more and more horrible things that can happen if I can't get him on the phone. I'm tired. Mentally and physically. My own health problems aren't helping matters either. Fuck. Oh well. I just needed to spill a little of my angst, let my mask of sarcasm slip for awhile. It may make me feel a little better.

So, I'll distract myself with a song from one of my favorite bands. And wait for him to get home.

Another Day, Another Ramble

Just another boring day at work. Sitting behind a desk for 12 hours answering phones and helping the residents here at my job. And surfing the internet because out of the 6 people that are down here in the lobby at this point in time, 2 are watching a movie, one is waiting for his ride to show up, two are preparing lunch and I'm sitting on my ass at the desk. Doing nothing. Which is my job on the weekends most of the time. Because our census here is low and Sundays are usually pretty quiet. Everyone eats, a few go to church or out with their family, but seldom is there anyone down here. It's no man's land until about a half hour before the next meal. Not that I'm complaining terribly, but it gives me time to look at useless information online, talk with residents or be bored completely out of my mind. Which is why I end up writing most of the crap that I've put on here on Sundays. Imagine that.

So I'm completely bored and the radio is playing utter shite and I have my PSP with me, playing music at a relatively low volume. I'm the only one that can hear it and it drones out the vapid top 40 bullshit pop music. Yes, top 40 vapid bullshit music in a retirement home. That's because the residents just want something so it's not boring and the person that worked before me doesn't like having nothing playing. I tune it out. I'm good at tuning it out, but I prefer to have music playing most of the time. I did forget to change up the music on my PSP so I've got a few albums on there and a couple of concert vids. I'm finishing the last of my lukewarm coffee that doesn't have nearly enough sugar in it to make me happy, and listening to Gackt. Yup. Paint me as a fangirl if you want. I like his music and don't really care too much about if that makes me a fangirl or not. I mean, I'm not crazy, screaming, flailing all over myself when a new video or anything comes out, but the man is talented musically. And he doesn't seem to take himself too seriously, even though he loves the dramatic. So ANYWAY:

GACKT - Setsugekka 雪月花~The end of silence~ PV



This song is rather sad and sappy.

Original/Romaji Lyrics

mikatzuki wo daita kimi ni tsubuyaite
kona yuki to odoru kimi ni aitai
datta hitotsu dake no omoi wo nosete
akaku somaru yuki wo sora ni chiribameta
kimi wo dakishimeru hana to nare
tsunoru omoi megurase sakimidare
kokoro ubawareru hodo kimi wo ai seta koto wo
nando mo nando mo yozora ni sakenda

toiki akaku somete utai tsuzukete ita
koyoi no yume ni zo kimi ga sugata wo
kimi no kieta kisetsu ga mou sugu owaru
saigo no namida, kasane, kono yuki ni kaete miseyou

kimi wo dakishimeru yuki to nare
tsunoru omoi chiribame maiodore
kizu wo kakusou to suru hodo naze ka namida ga furete
kimi no hohoemi ga ima, kasunde mienai

kimi wo terashidasu tsuki ni nareru nara
yozora ni hoshi chiribamete
kimi wa sagasou

karada kuchihatete mo..
kimi wo dakishimeru yuki to nare
yozora no kimi wo irodoru hana ni nare
kimi ni fureyou to suru hodo tsukande wa kieru "yuki no hana"
nando mo nando mo yozora
sakebi tsuzuketa

kimi ni todokimasu you ni...


English Translation

I whispered to you, who held the moon:

"I want to dance with you in this powdery snow" (1)
I gave the only love I had
and scattered the crimson-stained snow to the sky. (2)

Become the flowers that you embraced
Bloom, surrounded by these ever growing feelings
Over and over... I cried into the night sky
That I'd loved you so much I'd lost my soul

You continued to sing as your breath was stained red
"May you appear in my dreams tonight..."
Your final season has nearly reached its end
My last tears gather in my eyes, let's return to this fine snow

Become the snow that you embraced
Scatter these ever growing feelings, dance wildly
Why do these tears flow and make me want to end this pain?
Your smile is becoming blurry now

If I could become the moon that shines upon you
I'd scatter the stars into the night sky
And search for you

Even as my body wasted away...

Become the snow that you embraced
Become the flowers that painted you onto the night sky
I try to be close to you, but you vanish in my grasp... "snow blossom"
Over and over... to the night sky

I kept screaming

In hopes that it will reach you...

So I guess that I'm listening to sappy stuff that is making me think about how much I've been worrying about things lately. I've been preoccupied with other mundane but more important things in life to worry about putting anything up here really. I've been ill. I need to see a doctor, but alas cannot afford to because, well, I work for a place that doesn't have insurance. I'm certain I know exactly what is wrong with me. It's the same disease that my grandmother has and has been bed bound from for the past probably at least 7 years.

That prospect does not make me happy. Most of the time, about 5 years after the symptoms become apparent, the person is disabled. And there's not much that can be done about that. I'm stubborn though and will continue to work until I can't. I'll go crazy otherwise. Especially if I'm not able to use my hands like I can now. How do I know that's what I have without seeing a doctor? My fingers are twisting at odd angles and my hands look about 30 years older than they are. These are common symptoms. Does it hurt? Well, I had to make a trip to the ER several months ago because I basically couldn't walk due to the pain and swelling. Not that the ER workers were much help. They just kinda looked at my husband and I like 'meh', said "Fill this out, we'll call you when it's your turn." 5 hours later we left after a shot in my ass, (don't lie nurses, that was not my hip!) and the doctor that was in the room a total of 2 minutes looked briefly at my swollen hands, legs and feet from about 4 feet away and said, in broken english, "Not swoll, you go clinic. Arthritis." No joke. That probably sounds terrible, but sadly, it's the truth. That particular doctor is rather ineffective and I'm not the only person that's run into this doctor and had similar problems. The man couldn't even be bothered to sign the script for prescription strength naproxen.

My problems have been the least of my concerns though. My husband has been really ill and I've not been resting well due to it. He's worked one partial day in the last 2 weeks. I made him leave early because he was running a fever. He has a large lump on the side of his neck that he's going for an ultrasound for on Tuesday. He's been running high fevers and was on a twenty day course of 2 different antibiotics that did nothing. I made him go to the ER and they set him up with an appointment to follow up at the community health clinic. I can wait to see a doctor. He can't. I've not been sleeping well because I wake up at night and if I don't hear him I wake him up to make sure he's still breathing. That's how much it's been bothering me. So I'd say I've been too distracted to put anything of worth here lately. Maybe I'll find something worthwhile to write about.