Paris, what a trooper!

Who says the mega-rich are spoiled? Who dares to step across the line and say that heiresses' get special dispensation when it comes say, shoplifting or driving without liscenses that were revoked because they were driving drunk. Something like that, you know, for example.

The young woman, pasty, pale, in need of a sandwich and a B12 shot, has consented to not appeal her jail sentence. A jail sentence that was recently reduced from 45 to 23 days for "good behavior". This display of good behavior was reported to be showing up for her court date. Way to go!

Paris Hilton is gross

I have tried to stay silent on this "issue" as Paris Hilton is an idiot and blathering on about an idiot seemed, well, redundant. But come on. Stop driving you crazy druken ho, or go to the klink. Paris makes me miss Brittney. Sweet, crazy Brittney.

I am in my extended network

This is the message I got when I dug up my old MySpace page. "ANDY IS IN YOUR EXTENDED NETWORK" you don't say?

I have decided to go back on MySpace. I joined up several years ago at the behest of a good friend of mine in the name of "getting out there" and "meeting people". What a concept, meeting people while sitting cross-legged on my chair in my pjs.

My daughter is perfectly mortified that I have decided to get back on the MySpace train, however; after seeing the pathetic nature of my page, has consented to help me fix it up a bit. Poor kid.

Used Needle Windchimes & MRI Film Lampshades

So, it is a dream that I have had since I was diagnosed with MS last Summer (2 days before my birthday, which if you would like to jot it down, is August 17) to begin a cottage industry, selling used Rebif (MS drug) syringe windchimes and MRI film lampshades. 

 Life gets busy and sometimes our dreams have to be shelved for a while, as we take care of the day to day.  Typically it has been the case in my life, that I am pushed towards my dreams by outside forces, changing the course of my life in ways that necessitate I take action, or change course, or step out on a limb and take some risks.  That day has once again come.  I have been forced out on that limb and now my MS art will no longer stand in the shadows of my dreams, they can become reality.

 I am losing my insurance.  Blue Cross Blue Shield, the pimped out Escalade of insurances.  I knew this day was coming, but didn't realize that I wouldn't be eligable for COBRA therefore being able to maintain my reasonable ($348/month) payments for an additional 9 months.  Very Long Story.  Here is the short version:  not so.  I will be losing my insurance as of June One, Two-Thousand Seven.

So, I have to sell my MS handicrafts.  It is the universe's way of telling me, "Hey, lady, don't keep them windchimes and lampshades to yourself, share them with the world!"  Momma gotta pay da bills, yo.

 You want to know what that bill is?  Monthly?  Well, I have a call in to the "transition" team at BC/BS.  As far as I can tell, "transition" loosely translated from insurance parlance means:  "those who are screwed".  Meaning transferring from a resonable monthly payment under the unbrella of an employer or larger group, to a significantly larger monthly payment for those of us who don't have an employer who offers insurance.  Makes sense right, that whole idea?  I had to leave them a message and am now waiting to hear back exactly what my monthly payment would be once I "transition".

But I am not worried.  Know why?  MS handicrafts.  It is a way for me to give back, and raise vital funds to pay for more Rebif syringes ($1,600/month) and in another 6 months (barring any relapses, facial ticks, paralysis, etc.) another MRI (one of the brain, one of the c-spine with and without contrast so four really) at oh, say...let's see...carry the 1...about $2,600 a pop.  

Great-Grandpa Titus Got Sucked Under a Train

I love the truth.  No, not because it is far easier than telling lies as that requires an excellent memory and constant on-your-toedness.  No, because it truly is far stranger and in nearly all cases far more fantastical than any fiction I could ever hope to create.

 For example, I submit to you the brief but intoxicating story of my Great Grandpa Titus.  (Titus is the last name and not the first and here is hoping he is absolutely not relation to that b-list actor I "dated" for a short, short while).

Grandpa T went to see a fortune teller.  I assume this to be a magical place, somewhere the fish-boy and the bearded fat-lady played poker and smoked long, brown cigarettes after the tents had closed down for the night, though I have no proof.  The fortune teller was not enough to keep my tired, aged great-grandpa awake.  He, a member of the audience, likely seated on wooden folding chairs set in the round on a dirt floor with a vaulted tent ceiling with circles of smoke making their way to the top, fell asleep.

The fortune teller, gripped by a vision, pointed at my sleeping grandpa Titus and said wake him up! he is going to be killed by a train!  Grandpa, stone deaf as my great grandma (reportedly) used to say heard nothing, awoke at the end of the session and headed home.

 On his way home, he walked downtown (Austin, Minnesota downtown) and was nearly mowed down by a runaway horse-and-buggy.  Standing there, stone deaf, stupefied, near the train tracks (not on them), the poor old man didn't hear the approaching train.  He wasn't straight run over, no, he was sucked under the train, killed, dead. 

This report comes from my mom, who wasn't there, and seems to have been passed down in family legend like an old, hand-stitched quilt, or box of Aunt Mable's silver.  Far more valuable in my opinion. 

mas barack

This is one of the pix I took at Marshalltown Community College during  Senator Obama's visit this month.

Update on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 at 08:30AM by Jeen

Barak in M'town, 2007

barak

Sunday morning warm up

A boy, one of the twelve children in the family across the street, the leaning house with two dirt bikes, seven cars two pick-up trucks, a wiener dog, a pit bull and a warped and sun bleached lattice work porch that most likely, in the spring and summer, hold no vines. This boy, drives an aqua, or robin’s egg blue Pinto. It takes him some time to get it started. It clunks and whirrs, the ignition straining under the weight of the key he is turning. But eventually, like magic, one time, it starts. The thing turns over and roars. He pumps his foot, encased loosely in a boot that used to be his older brothers, the brother that gave himself the nickname Hollywood and now receives the local paper at the state lock up for cooking up a tub of meth. Expertly, he pumps the accelerator pedal. There is a method – too much and the engine can’t take it – not all at once. Too little the thing gets starved.

A mosquito bit my brain

I was watching the Discovery Health channel the other night. (Note: one of the indulgences I allowed myself when I moved back to Iowa was cable television knowing the limits of my surrounds). On this program to which I am addicted "Mystery Diagnosis" was a man who had unexplained vertigo, chunks of crud in his ear that had to be surgically removed, and hearing loss in his left ear. Intriguing...anyhoo, I love this stuff. Any puzzle is good for me. Tim & I sat on the phone last night - Friday - and did the Post crossword puzzle together and it was wonderful. A medical puzzle is even better. So this kid has all these wacky symptoms and do you know what it finally was diagnosed as? Well, it was some huge long word that I can't find anywhere on the web or on the Discovery Health website goddamnit, but here's what it is: his brain had herniated into his EAR CANAL. That is so cool, yet unsettling - two great tastes that taste great together.

I got to thinking. In theory then, this man's brain, lolling in the ear canal, is open to the elements. If a speck of dust were blown into the guys ear, it would be deposited not only in the waxy ear hole, but on the fellas brain too. Jimminy Cricket once warned my Kindergarten class in a rickety old film strip to "never stick anything sharper than your elbow in your ear." What if the gentleman with the ear/brain didn't see this filmstrip, vital, informative, and decided to scratch a deep unreachable itch in his ear - with the tip of a pencil? Yes, he could poke his brain. And possibly the most chilling and exhilerating idea is that if it were a hot summer, wet, with old tires strewn hither and yon, filled with fetid, stinking rainwater, producing billions of mosquitos, and, this man was out say, walking his dog, brain thoroughly extruded into the earway. A blood thirsty skeeder could and most likely would (on a dare from his fellow mosquitoes) fly into his ear and sting his bulging, exposed brain.

I Can't Vote

The first time I was able to vote, Michael Dukakis was running for president with Geraldine Ferraro. I know this because it was important voting. Well, also because Mr. Dukakis was traveling the country with his supporter Rob Lowe. They made a stop in Des Moines in the middle of the night and me and a friend turned up at the airport with hoards of other St. Elmo's Fire fans to check them out. My first polling place was a school in Ankeny, Iowa.

I went through a period, the Art School Phase, where my friends and I showed our patriotism by protesting the vote. It was very fashionable at that time to feign apathy about your government, not even apathy just disgust. And instead of doing something about it, like voting the clowns out of office, we bitched.

Voting is vital. During the last election, I got chills voting for Obama. I walked out of Christopher Columbus school on Leavitt and Augusta in Chicago, relieved that the democrats would be back in the white house.

This year, I can't vote. I am a woman without a country. The voting regulations in Iowa state you have to be registered to vote at least 11 days (yes, 11) prior to scheduled elections. I was here only 8 days prior. I don't live in Chicago anymore so can't do that. What a weird feeling.

Mykel will be able to vote in the next presidential election. I hope she votes for Barack.