While you're at it...

No, not THAT kind of brownies, although hey - that would be fun. LOL.

Jake and Logan went grocery shopping yesterday and decided they wanted some brownies, apparently, so they bought one of those yurmmy brownie mixes. Last night, Logan decided (after we ate dinner at the table like grown-ups) that she wanted to make said brownies. She commenced to gathering all of her required tools and ingredients, preheated the oven, and set out measuring. I noticed her pouring the veggie oil into the measuring cup and a brief thought went through my head, but it was quickly ignored and replaced by, “GENE SIMMONS IS FUNNY!”

Next thing we know, she’s stirring up the batter for what seems an eternity and says, “Is it SUPPOSED to be all thin like this?” Then it struck me.

“How much oil did you actually put in there?” I asked.

She looked at the box and said, “It says 1/4 cup. That’s what I did!”

I giggled a bit and said, “Get the measuring cup and show me.”

So, she did. “See???” she said, pointing at the mark. “One quarter cup!!”

. . .

I said, “Logan - that’s ONE and a quarter cup.”

. . .     . . .

NO BROWNIES FOR YOU!

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a cliché …

a mis-used one! Urgh.

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Not very many I connected with this week:

It’s a bit sad to me that people feel this way …

Totally understandable that they feel this way …

And more normal than I ever realized that they feel this way.

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The US Supreme Court has struck down a law that would have allowed the execution of someone convicted of raping a child.

The court said the Louisiana law would have violated the US constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment”.

“The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy in his majority opinion. (more …)

You know, I agree. The death penalty is too good a punishment. Perpetrators of child rape should be raped every day for the rest of their lives by a very large man named Bubba Earl with a 12-inch pecker and two teeth. Let’s really have the punishment fit the crime, shall we?

*seethe*

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I’ve become MEH again. I’m bordering on the edge of a bit of misery, and I don’t like it. Yet - I find it almost impossible to access my happiness. I know it’s there - it never really goes away. I’m just being stubborn, I suppose. Feeling some ridiculous need to continue toward more misery.

I’m wondering if a lot of this doesn’t have to do with the recent pain onset. For so long, I was in a lot of pain - weird pain - and couldn’t do anything about it. I think having another bad and lingering pain crop up (for which I could do nothing but wait) might have acted as a sort of trigger to send me super backsliding into those previous mindsets, emotion-sets, states of thought, and general meh-ness. It becomes obsessive and all-encompassing. Consuming almost all of my waking thoughts. It irritates me.

I’m doing much better in other, personal areas of my life - that gives me some comfort, at least. Work, on the other hand, is NOT helping. Sucks. Shit has happened to add to the overall “I hate this, I’m tired of it, I want something different”-ness.

Damn. I’m making up hyphenations again.

Maybe I’ll breathe again soon and be able to look at a tree. Until then, sorry if my posts are sadness fodder.

(and I’ve had to edit this post for mistakes about three times already since I posted it! urgh)

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My picks for the week from PostSecret:

HAHAHAHA! Awesome!!!

OMG! ROFL!! Double awesome!!!

I feel that! This is one of the things I consoled myself with while growing up overweight (and often looking back and seeing how that shaped “who” I was). At least I was pretty damn sure people liked me for who I was instead of how I looked.

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My mouth seems even worse today, and now my hearing has diminished some. WTF, over? I don’t really know what to do at this point. Except keep whining and wishing it didn’t hurt which are both counter-productive. I’m thinking of going to a local doctor or clinic instead of another dentist. The hearing thing is weird.

I suppose it’s good news, however, that my ankle (at least) hurts a little bit less today than it did yesterday.

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As if the whole “OMGMYMOUTHHURTSIWANTTOKILLTHEDENTISTTHENDIE” thing wasn’t bad enough, when I went to the post office this morning, my foot decided to be a retard and mis-step. This caused me to twist that ankle then fall upon the ground in a surprised heap, scraping all holy hell out of my knee on the way down.

At least I have three pain spots over which to spread my concentration now. HAHAHAHAHA. Mouth. Right ankle. Left knee.

YAY FER MEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

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This constant pain is making my anger come back. My useless, energy-sapping anger. My despondency. My hopelessness. Oh woe is me, dammit.

Seriously, though. Mouth pain is one of the worst sorts you can have, I think. Here’s a clue as to the level of pain I’m experiencing here. I’m saying this aloud maybe to give it credence? Hell, I don’t know.

Yesterday, here are the different “pain” meds I took and the effect they had:

1) Tylenol Arthritis (650mg per caplet) - 2 caplets yesterday morning - no dent in the pain

2) Ibuprofen (200mg per tablet) - 3 tablets yesterday about mid-morning - a tiny dent in the pain

3) Durabac Forte (I don’t even remember the strength, but it’s aspirin, caffeine, and NSAID and something else all rolled into one. Stuff I’m not supposed to take.) - 2 pills yesterday at lunch - this helped for a few hours.

4) Durabac Forte - last night I took two more which seemed to help some.

This morning, I’ve taken several Durabacs and nothing. Nothing at all. It still hurts.

So, yeah, I’m distracted and irritated and angry because my mouth freakin’ hurts. Whine whine whine. Shut up.

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I may be wrong, but the timing of this seems a bit too convenient for me to believe it isn’t some sort of ploy on the part of the Republicans to try and sway votes in their favor for the upcoming election.

Bush calls for offshore drilling, citing gasoline prices

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I haven’t whined about the medical community in awhile now. Mostly because I haven’t had to be exposed to it much since all those weird pains I was experiencing went away. Luckily for me, a new one emerged on Saturday, disrupted my life on Sunday, made me irritable on Monday, and drove me into a dentist’s office on Tuesday.

The culprit of my lovely horrible mouth pain: Bruxism. Yes. That’s right. I went to a dentist’s office and paid them $110 to have the man tell me that I grind my teeth a lot, need to stop worrying about everything in my life, and buy an expensive mouthpiece from them to wear at night (which isn’t covered by insurance for whatever reason). Of course, I could’ve understood his saying all that. The thing that made me angry was when he looked at me - with that loving, accusatory stare most doctors nowadays seem to have mastered as part of their training-to-be-a-doctor process - and said, “I wish you could take Ibuprofen.”

*blink*

“Yeah,” I scoffed. “Me, too.”

He could just as easily have looked at me and said, “I don’t care how much your mouth hurts. Seriously. You think I’m supposed to, but I don’t because I’m a dentist, and it’s not my job to care about your well-being at all. I think you’re a drug-seeker. I think if I give you a handful of pain pills, you’ll be addicted. Then my ass will get into trouble with the DEA (or whoever) for trying to help a patient with limited possibilities for controlling pain. Fuck that. You suck shit and die for all I care.”

Seriously. That would have elicited no worse emotional response from me than “I wish you could take Ibuprofen” elicited.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I understand why doctors are hesitant; I really do. It doesn’t make me any less angry when I’m treated like a seeker. It also brings home what the next 20+ years of my life may be like as I sink deeper into the “normal” pains which come from growing older. What will I do then? All of those things descended on me like those proverbial bricks yesterday within a 30-second time frame. I called Jake when I left, bitched about it for a few minutes with some tears, then I let it go. Until I started typing this blog this morning. Now, when I’m done, I’ll let it go again.

But my mouth is still going to fucking hurt. So, thanks doc. ‘preciate that. Mucho.

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Accepting the fact that others don’t necessarily “think” as much as I do is difficult for me. How can they not? I suppose it has been so much of my existence for so long, it’s a state I’ve taken to be normal.

I have, before, asked people, “What are you thinking about?” to which they have often responded, “Nothing.”

“You have to be thinking about SOMEthing,” I would say.

Thinking about nothing just did not compute. I understand now how that can be possible because I’ve actually experienced it. I still don’t always believe it when others say it, though. I tell myself, “They have to be thinking something. They’re just unaware of it or don’t want to share it.”

How’s that for arrogance at its best?

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Most of the cards on PostSecret this week were just … sad. However, these two were not, so I thought I would share them!

Notes from Dad

Notes from Grandpa

One of my podcasts is "Best of YouTube." Here is one I watched this morning. It's awesome. Very weird and a tad disturbing but still ... just cool.

We have this cat. His name is Chili. I love this cat, but he has to be the mouthiest feline fucker I’ve ever met. No lie. He bitches and whines and talks and purrs and mews and chirps. It’s often entertaining and often annoying, but seriously - almost always endearing.

When you have an animal you love so much and pair it with a sick, collective household sense of humor, the results can be endless fun. We (lovingly, of course) torture this cat as often as possible. He endures it. He’s kinda like a dog in that regard. He’s the only cat I’ve ever met who has zero shame. He doesn’t mind looking like a dumb-ass. He is addicted to Pounce as if it were the best crack in the ghetto, and he makes no qualms about begging for it on a daily hourly minute-ly basis.

Jake loves this cat - although he was loathe to admit it for a long time. Here. Observe, in its natural state, their love-hate relationship. (Or hate-love relationship.)

Chili hates it when Jake does this. Jake loves it when Chili does this.

Chili is a wonderful little cat. Love him. Fear him. Give him treats!

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"The twofold reality of the universe, which consists of things and space -- thingness and no-thingness -- is also your own. A sane, balanced, and fruitful human life is a dance between the two dimensions that make up reality: form and space." (p. 219 - A New Earth)

I have been asking myself this question for years. And boy have I run the gamut in answers! When I was younger, I defined who I was as being the opposite of everything everyone else was. I was a conformist to non-conformity! Yes! As I've aged, I've begun to look more and more to the opinions of others to define who I am.

"Who do *you* think I am?" I would ask.

Then I would take that information and smile about the good things while still always finding a way to denigrate them, and I would take the not-so-good things and use them as super-ammo for my own destruction of self. I'm a firm beater-yourself-upper, you see. At least, I have been for a long time. I've gotten way so-much-very-better at not doing that over the past month, but I kid myself if I think it's gone for good. It ain't, Jack!

So, anyway -- those of you who read this here blawg know I've been all about this Eckhart Tolle stuff lately, and I figure most of you think it's lots of bunk since I haven't gotten many comments on it (which is okay with ME - maybe not with my EGO, but she can kiss off - HA). However, I was listening to my audio book this morning, and I heard something I just HAD to find in my written copy and adorn with underlining and starring. I thought I'd give it a good ol' copy over here. 

"I usually congratulate people when they tell me, "I don't know who I am anymore." Then they look perplexed and ask, "Are you saying it is a good thing to be confused?" I ask them to investigate. What does it mean to be confused? "I don't know" is not confusion. Confusion is: "I don't know, but I should know" or "I don't know, but I need to know." Is it possible to let go of the belief that you should or need to know who you are? In other words, can you cease looking to conceptual definitions to give you a sense of self? Can you cease looking to thought for an identity? When you let go of the belief that you should or need to know who you are, what happens to confusion? Suddenly, it is gone. When you fully accept that you don't know, you actually enter a state of peace and clarity that is closer to who you truly are than thought could ever be. Defining yourself through thought is limiting yourself."  (p. 90 in A New Earth)

Now, I - of all people, folks - understand that this is only one possible interpretation of things. (I started to say one man's interpretation of things, but that's not really true because these ideas on Being go waaaaaaaaay back.) But is it such a bad one? If we were to truly adopt this, what would be the absolute WORST thing that could happen to us?

Think about it. What answer do you come up with?

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