May 31, 2007

Asshat Thy Name is TB-patient

So, I'm sure you've all seen the news about the asshole who's been continent jumping while carrying around a nice X-x-x-tremely drug resistant case of TB. Turns out that:

  • He's a lawyer (go figure)
  • His father-in-law studies TB for the CDC (i-r-on-y!)
  • This little bit of gallivanting was for his wedding/honeymoon

Call me old fashioned, but if I was diagnosed with TB I'd call of any plans and get myself treated. This asspirate knew before he left that he had a drug resistant strain of TB. But, because assmunches know better than their doctors, assknockers think they know that it's a-ok for them to travel all over potentially spreading TB-goodness to the masses. If a global pandemic of extremely drug resistant TB breaks out, I want to be first in line to cockpunch this assnugget.

Sign in the comments if you're with me. The queue starts there!

May 29, 2007

Faith

I'm currently reading 2 novels -- one in English, the other in Spanish. [Labyrinth, La Biblia de barro] This wasn't anything intentional on my part, but both explore alternate histories of what happened in Christianity's past: Labyrinth deals with the Cathars in Southern France and La Biblia de barro explores the idea of a 'Bible' written on clay tablets (i.e., a written history prior to the scrolls that compose the Old Testament.)

I find both of these novels to be very intriguing. They flesh out what Christianity is to me. My experience with The Da Vinci Code was similiar. It didn't destroy my world view, or bring the basic tenets of Christianity crashing to the ground. It simply added another dimension to what Jesus was like and who he was.

Neither of the books I'm reading now are anywhere near as controversial as Da Vinci, but they do make me wonder about why some people get completely bent out of shape about books like these. I know I'm a day late and a dollar short to this particular discussion, but I honestly don't see the 'threat' behind the idea that Jesus was married and had children. It doesn't change his message, nor his mission here on Earth. If anything it makes him more real, somebody I can relate to better. The same holds true for the tenets of the 2 novels I'm currently reading -- they add nuance, expand my knowledge and make me think. So, it makes me wonder why some people's faith can be so shaken by novels like these. As I learn more and expand my horizons it becomes easier for me to believe that people in the Bible actually lived and they weren't just fables or legends. And I truly feel sorry for those people that see books like these as heretical and threatening.

May 21, 2007

Kamakazi

I am very irritated at my upstairs neighbors. Last Thursday, I was out on the terrace having my before-bedtime-cigarrette. Roxy was roaming back and forth seeing if the neighbor's cat was out on her terrace so they could stare at each other through the fence. We were just quietly enjoying the cool evening.

Then I noticed Roxy jump back. A few seconds later I heard some water hit the concrete (and my dog). I walked out from under the roofed in section of our terrace and looked up. There were our neighbors on the 3rd floor -- trying to bomb Roxy with squirts from their bottles of water. They stared at me, I stared at them and said "NOT COOL!" They continued to stare at me, and never said a word. It was this weird lifeless stare, kind of like they weren't even alive or maybe they were possessed by zombies.

At any rate, I've been very leery about letting Roxy out on the terrace because I'm not sure if these buttheads are going to try to throw more water on her, or worse solid objects that could seriously hurt her. I've been debating telling property management about them; I'm relatively certain it's against our bylaws to throw anything off your balcony. However, I don't want this to devolve into some pissing match and have the upstairs neighbors on the 3rd floor retaliate. The dog would most likely bear the brunt of the retaliation, and I don't want her to get hurt.

Any ideas, because I'd like to be able to go out on my balcony-terrace and not have to worry about the idiots on the 3rd floor.

May 14, 2007

I Need A Y-wing Fighter Up In Here

Yesterday my friend J. and I were tooling around town. One of our stops was to the local grocery store. As we were walking out of the store and meandering back to the car, I noticed that this guy made a really random face at J. as he checked her out. I couldn't tell if he approved or disapproved of what he saw. So, I told J. that some crazy guy just checked her out. She turned around and said something, and we started to laugh.

We got back to the car and started to get in when the woman in the car next to us rolled down the passenger-side window and yelled over at us: "I saw you laughing at that woman. You all shouldn't be sos ig'nant. Get some culture." This crazy woman assumed that because she saw us laughing we had to be laughing at Darth Burka who was walking into the store about 10 feet ahead of the guy that checked J. out. (I know I shouldn't call this arabic woman 'Darth Burka' but she was all covered from head to toe in cloth with only that Cylon strip of an eyeslot to see out of.)

OF COURSE, J. and I noticed her -- it's hard to miss something like that. J. was thinking "wow, she must be really hot under all that cloth." I was thinking "holy crap. It's amazing that a woman's ankle or wrist or any part of her body is so subversive that the men in her culture have to keep her all wrapped up because the power of her pussy is so great that they won't be able to control themselves if they see even a bit of her pinky toe."

We ignored the crazy woman in the car next to us hurling insults at us, which she continued to do while we got into the car, loaded our stuff in and got ready to leave. Finally, as we were pulling out she screamed out the window "That woman was about as funny as you being fat." (J. is a big woman, and this lady had a real beef with J. In fact, all of her rants were directed at J. and not me.)

J. was really bothered by this woman's insults. I told her that it didn't matter what we said, this woman was going to have a negative impression of us no matter what. J. eventually got over the parking lot terrorrism, and we went on to enjoy the rest of our day.

To the crazy lady that cussed us out (if you ever read this blog):

  1. before you accuse someone of being culturally insensitive, you might want to be sure you know what you're talking about.
  2. before you call someone ig'nant, you might want to actually learn how to speak proper English.
  3. J. was engaged to a muslim for 3 years.
  4. It's not particularly smart to sit in a car with the windows cracked just a hair on a hot day in the middle of a sunny parking lot. It's even less smart -- ignorant even -- to have your baby in the backseat.
  5. I would assume that being a black woman you would be fed up with people teasing you and thinking less of you because of your most obvious physical trait. Therefore, it was really uncool for you to go for the gold and insult J. on her most obvious physical trait because we were ignoring you and not wanting to start any fight with you.
  6. Mind your own business.
  7. That is all.

May 11, 2007

Choose Life

I ran across this site a few weeks ago, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. Every time I play with my dog, thoughts of what happened to that dog cross my mind. I've lost pets before, but never have they been forceably taken from this life.

What stuns me the most about what happened to Marbles is that Gee's first choice of action was to get a gun and blow the dog away. Not only killing, but in this case the gun she used was the equivalent of taking out an anthill with a nuclear bomb. Why didn't she fire the gun in the air to scare the dog off?

I've read every article and link at the site. One thing that is abudantly clear to me is that Gee's story is wildly inconsistant. The only fact that she consistantly states is that she shot the dog. Gee seems oblivious to the fact that she killed a living being, and she's stated that she would do it again. Death is not the only solution.

I don't know how Marbles came to be on Gee's property. Maybe part of the electric fence was broken. Even so, a pet owner shouldn't have to fear that their dog will get shot dead by their neighbors. My heart goes out to Marbles and her family. I know it's never easy to lose a pet, but to lose one in this manner seems unbearable.

Postscript:
I had a really hard time writing this entry. I wrote, edited, rewrote and removed entire passages. I finally decided to focus on 'killing as a means of first recourse.' I want to be charitable towards Gee as we'll never really know what happened. To that end I removed a lot of text about her behaviors (i.e.: why were her children playing outside apparently unattended? among other questions I had.)

My final thought on the matter is that dogs will continue to escape their yards and roam around. We can't really change that, they're dogs. We can build better fences and keep a closer eye on them, but there will always be that one time the dog gets free. To that end, we can change how we react to a strange, possibly threatening animal on our property. We can chose many other options that don't involve killing the animal.

Reduxing The Redux

I'm back on the meds: percocet, flexeril, celebrex (and because it's allergy season claritin). I've been having increasing amounts of pain that have leveled off around the 4 mark on the pain scale (1 to 10). Most days the meds make life tolerable, but there are days when everything seizes up and the pain rockets up towards a nice 7 and I'm so sore and stiff I can barely move.

All in all, things are getting better. But. It's been 3 months since I've had surgery. I've called my surgeon and he wants me to go back to PT to help with the pain. He thinks that some massage, etc., will help calm everything down and knock out the last of the pain that I'm having. The bad news is that my PT doctor's first available appointment is June 6. I'm on the waiting list to get in earlier, but I doubt that will happen.

In all seriousness, I think PT is exactly what I need. The great majority of the pain is coming from muscle soreness in my shoulders and neck. Hopefully, they'll be able to rehabilitate me and get everything back to normal. Until then, I'll still be posting smacked out on the good meds.

Rolling It Out

Everyone give a warm welcome to the great big world of the bloggerdom to my friend Jolie. She's a little messed up with her 3 personalities and such, but that's why I keep her around. Normal people are just so boring. That and we have illegal amounts of fun making fun of the stupidity of others.

We've known each other for many years now. We've been co-workers, party animals (I'm thinking of that crazy-as-hell foam party), roommates, pet sitters and many other things during our long friendship which is now bicoastal. So, greetings to the web's newest terror out in Seattle from the gayest gay boy in flipflops in DC.

May 6, 2007

May 4, 2007

I'll Take '1000' Alex

Alex: Remember each correct answer (in the form of a question) will contain the numerical value "One Thousand" Good luck, players!

AJ: I'd like 1000 for 400, Alex.

Alex: Blood work, X-rays, Medicine and other treatments.

AJ: What is 'How much does it cost when you take your dog to the vet because she's been vomiting, peeing and diarrhea'ing all over your house for the last 12 hours?"

That's right. Yesterday morning Roxy blessed us all. She has spread her love all over the house and all over the various types of flooring. She's not particular. The carpet, ceramic tiles and hardwood have all been hit by her explosive rear end.

Our very on-point vet thinks that she's got a parasite of some stripe, so he's prescribed deworming medication and a broadband anti-parasite medicine for her. She doesn't like her medication, so I've had to resort to chasing her through the house with a pill coated in peanut butter on my finger, pinning her down, and smearing it on the roof of her mouth so she'll swallow it.

Honestly, I wasn't counting on having to pay 1000 dollars for this visit to the vet. But, I'd rather be safe than sorry. I'd never forgive myself if she ended up dead because I thought "oh, it's just a case of diarrhea, she'll get over it." I've seen her regular diarrhea and it's nothing like what was spread all over the house these past 24 hours. I'm happy to report she's on the mend and her energy levels and rambunctiousness have returned to almost normal.