Phil Spector is SCARY May 24, 2005

I think I’ve pointed folks towards Go Fug Yourself before. If you’ve never gone there, go, because its hilarious. I love laughing at celebrities, and these women who write these posts are freaking hysterical.

This pic of Phil Spector sitting in court, oh, you’ll pee. You’ll pee right in your pants as you sit in front of your computer, incompacitated with laughter. I think I spelled incompacitated wrong, but I don’t really care. You’ll understand what I mean when you look at the picture and you find yourself incompacitated with laughter.

Thank you thank you thank you May 20, 2005

I just want to quickly thank everybody that has offered their kind words and concern over my vertigo/panic situation I’ve gone through this week. Quite frankly, complete strangers have offered more concern than the people I see every day!

I’m feeling better already, thanks to cutting the meds down and being pretty much off caffeine for several days now. I definitely still have some dizzy moments, and when I feel the panic setting in, I pop a xanax and feel better. I really dislike being medicated, however, so hopefully I’ll be able to get over this soon. I’m going to see the doctor on Monday to rule out any more serious problems.

I am in love with the way that blogging has made the world simultaneously smaller and larger for me all at the same time. That statement was a bit redundant, now wasn’t it?

So anyway, I just wanted to note my appreciation to everyone who has professed concern for my health both in comments and private e-mails. It has made a world of difference.

Thank you.

Vertigo, and no, I’m not talking U2 May 19, 2005

Much has happened since my last post on Sunday. The worst of which was on Monday night, I ended up in the ER with vertigo, combined with the lovely addition of associated panic/anxiety attacks! Whew! What fun that was!

For the last four weeks or so, I’ve been experiencing a general feeling of illness. Not to say I usually feel a general feeling of wellness, because I am certainly not the healthiest person on the planet, but my feeling of general illness has been more pronounced in the last few weeks. On top of that, I’ve had several episodes of vertigo.

Have you ever experienced vertigo? This ain’t no run-of-the-mill dizziness, this vertigo thing. This is where you are sitting in a chair, doing basically nothing (in my case, during the episodes I was either at my computer writing or blogging, or the first time it happened I was tutoring a young college student in a tiny tutoring cubicle) and suddenly the entire room gets turned upside down. It’s like stepping off a merry-go-round, or doing that stupid thing where you place your forehead on a baseball bat while it’s placed on the ground, and turn in circles until you fall over. Hilarious and fun when you do it on purpose, because you know it will end soon. Not so hilarious and fun when it comes out of nowhere and you don’t know if it will stop. It’s kind of like a bad trip.

Now, the vertigo episodes fortunately didn’t last very long, a few minutes at most, accompanied by a violent wave of nausea (again, FUN! Love that! Especially when sitting in class!). The real fun came right after the vertigo ended, when I would be overcome with a panic so unfounded and so severe, I pretty much thought I was going to die, and saving that, wished I was going to die so I didn’t have to worry about it anymore. The panic would last for at least five minutes, during which my heart would rise up to a most unnatural location, in my throat, which impeded the deep breathing I would attempt in order to make it go away, and thump (not race, which would be even scarier), but thump loud and clunky.

Monday night, while sitting in class, I had some mild dizziness, a general feeling of yuckiness, and then by about 7:30 (class starts at 6, goes until 10), I was experiencing these waves of panic that would last a few minutes and then subside, then wash over me again, then subside again. By 9:30, I was ready to scream to my teacher, “Sam! Call me a fucking ambulance! I think I’m dying!” but I was so sure that he would think me completely insane that I didn’t. Plus, the waves would subside, and in the non-panic moments, my brain would convince me that I was fine, make it through class, go home and go to bed, then the wave would come again and I would be unable to speak, gripping my desktop so hard I’m surprised it didn’t crumble in my fist.

I deep-breathed all the way to the parking lot, I somehow drove myself home in this state of utter panic, stopping at the ER closest to my house rather than a little further to the better one (a half mile seemed just too long to wait.)

Diagnosis? Vertigo with associated panic attacks. How did the (thorough? I think not) ER staff come up with this diagnosis? Well, by listening to me tell them that’s pretty much what I had. Did they take a peek in my ears to see if I had an ear infection causing the vertigo? No. Did they give me any sort of CT scan of the brain to make sure I didn’t have some giant tumor pressing on some important nerve? Oh, no.

They gave me xanax, and some other thing that is similar to dramamine. Now, I am not one to turn down high-quality prescription medicine. Really. I enjoy a nice xanax after a stressful day. What I don’t enjoy is having to take xanax three times a day, along with this other dramamine-like substance, as both of these combined cause me to, when I am able to remain awake, appear to be in a drunken stupor. I can’t form sentences. It is difficult for me to even type this. I keep having to go back and fix errors. It’s annoying. I sleep the sleep of the dead, and because I haven’t been moving around in my bed while sleeping, I wake up stiff as a board (no, not that kind of stiff, I’m a girl, remember? Stiff as in can’t bend my body.)

I’m only taking these medicines as prescribed for the first couple of days. In fact, I did not take either today, until a couple hours ago because I started feeling dizzy and panicky again. But I only took a half a xanax.

I did say to my husband, in the ER, after one of the worst panic attacks (I was screaming and crying, “Please somebody help me! Make this go away!” Did anyone come running? Uh, no.), I would rather be constantly dizzy than have to experience this panic ever again, so I was all for remaining in a drug-induced stupor for a day or two. But now I have to lay off.

The culprit? Well, unless I find out otherwise from my regular doctor when I see him on Monday that I have a brain tumor or something, I basically overdosed myself on caffeine. I know it sounds crazy, but for the last several weeks I have literally poured nothing down my throat that wasn’t coffee, pepsi, iced tea, or vodka & tonic. The only thing not dehydrating in that list is the tonic, and honestly, it’s more of a pass of the tonic bottle over the glass of vodka. So that explains the panic attacks, but I’m not sure I’m accepting that as an explanation for the vertigo.

Anyone with some expertise in this area-I would love to hear your thoughts, unless you are going to lecture me on taking better care of myself, because that will just annoy me.

BTW, I will be responding to my fridge-tagging by John from Romantic Ramblings shortly, as soon as I can pull myself out of this xanax coma enough to figure out how to operate my camera.

Character Counts! May 15, 2005

I have long desired to write about this particular subject, but I’ve been afraid to for several reasons, the main one being that I don’t want to get sued. But you know what? There’s a little thing I’m fond of called the first amendment. I will exercise those rights right now.

Have you ever heard of the Character Counts! initiative? Well I have, every day for the last two fucking years. You want to know why? I’ll tell you why, my friend. A couple years back, our local DARE officer got a little heavy-handed with his DON’T DRINK ALCOHOL lectures, and a number of fourth graders went home and, bodies racked with sobs, poured the contents of their parents’ liquor cabinets down the drain. After (some of, most of, whatever) these kids were beaten to bits, and their parents returned home from the liquor store with fresh supplies, because god knows after delivering a sound beating, you really need a stiff drink, some of these kids limped from their rooms, and through faces swollen from repeated blows and crying for hours, the kids would exclaim, “No! Mom! No! Officer Idiot (name changed to protect, well, my own ass, quite frankly) says that drinking alcohol will kill you!” (After some investigation, it was determined that Officer Idiot believed that the kids would be able to affect their parents’ drinking habits. Stupid fuck.)

Long story short, parents complained, loudly, and the DARE program was dropped in our town. Not wanting to lose any government funding for not having some sort of bullshit, trumped-up program designed to “enhance” what parents are teaching their children at home, our school district chose to spend an egregious amount of money on a program called Character Counts! (In case you’re wondering, the Character Counts! initiative/company/brain-washing cult requires the use of the exclamation point. Always.) Shortly after that, our TOWN took it on as well, for another egregious amount of money, and now we have lovely Character Counts! banners flying from all the light poles, and I hear tell that the DARE logo formerly gracing our police cars will be replaced with the 6 Pillars of Character.

What are the Six Pillars of Character, you ask? Well, besides being something a bunch of weirdos thought up at a “seminar,” they apparently exist so that there is a common dialogue, a common vocabulary if you will, being used both at school and at home, so that kids won’t be confused when their teachers tell them, “It’s against the rules to cheat, Bobby,” and their parents tell them, “If you get caught cheating one more time, you little asshole, you’re going to military school!”

Specifically, the Six Pillars of Character, as defined by the Character Counts! initiative/corporation/cult, are as follows: (Oh, FYI, if I don’t explain all this enough for you, I’m sure you can attend one of their “seminars” for a mere $800 and get the real scoop.)

Also FYI: any of my own additions to or comments about these definitions are in RED. I should add that I really don’t have any problem with these so-called pillars. My problem is that they’re called pillars, and some parent constructed literal pillars, and painted them and they stand, at least 12 feet tall, in the foyer of my kid’s school. And the kids will be sitting in class, listening to their teacher read them a story, or struggling through a word problem, and the teacher will pause and ask, “Okay, kids, what pillar does this exemplify (she probably doesn’t say “exemplify,” because the kids wouldn’t know what the hell that means, but you catch my drift)?” And everyone stops and has to think up what pillar the story is illustrating. Then, by the time these kids get to junior high, and are starting to figure out that they have the ability (and right) to use things like rational and independent thought, they start making fun of anybody and everybody who says word one about the pillars. Not only that, but following the tenets with anything approaching zeal, or even willingness, brands you a loser (oh, those pre-teens!), and it is decidedly UNcool to have character as defined below:

All of the text in blue is ©2005 / Josephson Institute and was lifted directly from the Character Counts website. I give them full credit for these definitions of the Six Pillars of Character.

Trustworthiness
Be honest • Don’t deceive, cheat or steal • Be reliable — do what you say you’ll do • Have the courage to do the right thing • Build a good reputation • Be loyal — stand by your family, friends and country

Makes sense, doesn’t it? Of course. Aren’t these the kinds of things we teach our children every day in small ways? I am often heard to call out to my children, in a sweet voice, “Darlings, could you prove your loyalty by running down to the basement and fetching me an ice-cold beer from the fridge? And don’t drink any of it! That’d be STEALING!”

Respect
Treat others with respect; follow the Golden Rule • Be tolerant of differences • Use good manners, not bad language • Be considerate of the feelings of others • Don’t threaten, hit or hurt anyone • Deal peacefully with anger, insults and disagreements

There’s nothing wrong with any of that, is there? Of course not. And that’s how they are sucking us in. I’ve made subtle references to a cult, here, and I truly believe that’s what this is. There’s SONGS, that they listen to on CDs, purchased by the school district from the cult, I mean Character Counts! people. One of the songs, by the way, which the children sang in a Character Counts! show they put on a couple months ago, happens to be With a Little Help From My Friends, you know, that Beatles song? Only they changed the line that goes a little something like “I get HIGH with a little help from my friends” to, well I’m guessing here, because I ripped the lyric sheets up into a million little pieces and burned them in the sink, “I SMILE with a little help from my friends.”

Responsibility
Do what you are supposed to do • Persevere: keep on trying! • Always do your best • Use self-control • Be self-disciplined • Think before you act — consider the consequences • Be accountable for your choices

Again, who could say there’s anything wrong with this? In my house, it comes out a little more like, “Sit down, Jesus, control yourself for chris’s sake, what’s the matter with you?” and/or “Use your fucking head once in a while!” and/or “Get out there and pick up that week’s worth of three dogs’ dog shit, you’re goddamned right it’s your job, and for your sass, you get to do it every Saturday for the rest of your life!” and/or “Now get out there and score a fucking goal, goddamn it, quit your crying, just be glad you’re wearing those shin guards!” Or something to that effect.

Fairness
Play by the rules • Take turns and share • Be open-minded; listen to others • Don’t take advantage of others • Don’t blame others carelessly

The most oft-uttered phrase in our house? “The fair is once a year in Springfield.”

Caring
Be kind • Be compassionate and show you care • Express gratitude • Forgive others • Help people in need

We tend to say things like “Hey, be nice to your sister!” or “Mommy’s tired, bring me a beer before you go clean the bathroom, will you? Thanks.”

Citizenship
Do your share to make your school and community better • Cooperate • Get involved in community affairs • Stay informed; vote • Be a good neighbor • Obey laws and rules • Respect authority • Protect the environment

Again, I freely admit that there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with any of these things. I love the part about staying informed and voting, and especially protecting the environment. A small (very small) part of me actually hopes this cult takes over our entire town, and then conquers the world, because frankly, it’d be a nicer place to live if everybody acted according to these principles. So what’s my fucking problem?

I’ll tell you what my fucking problem is. My fucking problem is that this 1. Cost my school district, which does wonders with what little money they actually have (we’re primarily residential, property taxes are high, but we have no industry or large retail resources dumping money into our coffers) a large sum of money. Additionally, our teachers are frequently sent to these high-priced seminars, sometimes paid for not by the school district, but by the PTA. 2. The town getting in on it freaks me out-I really get the willies with these banners proclaiming the names of the pillars hanging from every street lamp in town. It’s just…weird. 3. I get the whole “common vocabulary” schtick, I really do, but you know what? Kids need to be taught these things in myriad ways. They need to be told a hundred times, an hundred different ways. They need to learn by example. They need to learn in a thousand subtle ways. I’m thinking that after the tenth, or even the twentieth time these kids have heard the word PILLAR, they’ve learned to tune out everything that comes after.

We’re talking about basic ethics, here. There’s right, and then there’s wrong. It’s one of the hardest lessons to learn as a human being, and some of us never get it quite right. Some of us veer off the path to WRONG in a big way and never come back.

But giving children a set of vocabulary words is meaningless. Relating every damn thing they learn to one of these vocabulary words is equally as meaningless. They need to see this stuff in action. What happens when a kid does something wrong at school, and gets sent to the principal’s office? Well, they sit there with the principal and have a nice chat about which pillar the kid has violated, and how they should never do it again. The phrase, “Well, that’s not very Character Counts!” gets tossed around alot. What the hell is that supposed to mean to a kid?

Kids aren’t afraid of their elders anymore, that’s one of the problems. And why do you think that is? I’m not advocating corporal punishment in schools or anything, but there is something decidedly un-scary about going to the principal’s office and having a sweet chat about a concept. My son gets sent to the principal’s office, and spends the day building up an ulcer NOT because he was sent there, but because he knows the shit-storm he’s in for when he gets home. He’s AFRAID. And he should be, dammit. None of this nicey-nice, “I want the kids to like me” crap. They need to walk around in perpetual FEAR that if they don’t act the way I expect them to act, they’re going to get yelled at and sent to their room. For the night. Without dinner. Much like I was when I was a kid. And look how great I turned out.

Am I getting to any sort of point here? I don’t know. I’m tired and not thinking clearly. I’d love your comments, agree or disagree. I’d even like someone to try to stop me from being such a freak, thinking this is all some wacky conspiracy, some crazed, smiling, bland cult of nice ethical people trying to take over my kid’s heads.

Argh. Time to go finish my essay. Have a pleasant evening, everybody.

What the hell is wrong with me? May 15, 2005

Didn’t I promise myself that I was going to neither go to someone else’s house nor allow other people to come to my house? Well, by 8 p.m., I had an entire slew of people standing around my fire pit in the back yard drinking beer, including a gaggle of jr. high kids (they weren’t drinking the beer, at least as far as I know) who came with their parents, and brought friends with them. What is it with 12 year olds? They are loud, they move so fast, and they eat constantly.

We ended up sitting around until past midnight. Obviously, I didn’t get any writing done. I have the rough draft of a 15 page essay due tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. I’d better get started, wouldn’t you say? I’ve got exactly one paragraph done, which I will probably select and delete. I’m going to have to go somewhere else besides my house to work on this. Problem is, it is 2:48 pm and I am still in my pajamas. I haven’t put on a bra yet, which is a dangerous situation. You don’t want to be standing too close to me if I turn around quickly. You’ll find yourself on the ground, feeling like someone wacked you with a couple of lead pillows.

I want to stay in my pajamas, but I can’t go out in public like this. Have I brushed my teeth yet? I’m not sure. If not, the twelve cups of coffee I drank this morning probably wore any scum off of them. I’m not sure I’d like a whiff of my own breath at this point.

I’d go upstairs and clean up, and put on a bra and some other clothes, but I’m afraid if I get within five feet of my bed, I will be unable to resist crawling into it and going to sleep. I could go up there and lay in my bed and write. That might work. For about five minutes.

Wow, this is an interesting post. Aren’t you glad you paused in your blog clicking to waste five minutes reading this? I really have to try to come up with something worthwhile for you people to read.

Garage Cleaning Day May 14, 2005

My husband is outside cleaning out the garage so that there is room for my new car. In the last two days, I have watched hail rain on my new car, and it received its first scratch from my son’s bicycle handle as he walked past my car from the garage.

I probably should be out there helping, as it is my car that is going in there, not his, but you know what? It’s his CRAP that is in my way. The garage is his little world. He’s the one who made the mess, he’s the one who should clean it, right?

The least I could do, though, is to do something productive around the house, like some laundry, or washing a couple windows. Sitting here at my dining room table blog clicking, exploding, and soldiering all at the same time, as well as writing this silly post, isn’t really productive in my hubby’s eyes.

Besides, when it starts raining, as it looks like it is going to do any minute, I want to be in the middle of cleaning something, so he can’t holler, “Hey, help me get all this crap off the driveway quick!” I’ll be too deep into a closet, organizing (sleeping) to hear him!

I’ll be back later. I am determined to stay home this evening, and not allow anyone to come over, and sit at my computer with a cocktail and blog away. I have been so neglectful of my darling audience!

Student Hackers Break into School’s System, Steal Social Security Numbers May 12, 2005

This amuses me, for a few reasons.

One, that was my high school. And Hinsdale, Illinois tends to breed a variety of child that is unaware of the fact that laws, morals and values that apply to the rest of the world also apply to them. It’s all that money that does it. Those kids are in their own little priviledged world.

Two, I’m quite sure that there were a bunch of kids sitting in the bedroom of one, smoking pot and drinking beer, playing on the computer, and one of them chuckled and said, “Dude, let’s hack into the fucking school’s computer system, man. That would be so awesome. Huh heh heh heh.” Then the others said, “Dude, let’s do it!” And about twelve seconds later, they were done. Then, they said, “Dude, what the hell do we do now?” “Hey, grab everyone’s social security numbers! When they catch us, we’ll just say we were trying to prove how lame their system is!”

Three, I have a fun little fantasy in which these hackers hang on to these SSNs and do some major damage to the credit of some of the children of the wealthiest families in town, which causes said families to be forced into a downward spiral of debt and hopelessness. Multi-million dollar homes are auctioned off at bargain-basement prices to pay the debts of these kids. The entire economy of Hinsdale falls into the shitter, and I buy the whole town for a song. That would be fun.

But seriously, that Hinsdale Central, or any other high school for that matter, is not better guarding their students’ personal information points to a real problem-that most of this personal information will already be in the hands of thieves and criminals before these kids even get into the adult world. That is scary.

99 Rooms May 12, 2005

My God, have you seen this yet? Go, go on with you, waste some more of your life.

Conspiracy Theory Rock May 11, 2005

I believe this was originally shown on Saturday Night Live, as it is a Robert Smigel cartoon, and there is an NBC logo in the corner.

I came upon it through AlterNet.

Hilarious, and will send anyone over the age of 30 back in time, to when Saturday morning is when you watched your cartoons, in your pajamas, with your pillow and blanket off your bed, bowls of cereal in your lap.

I hate titles May 11, 2005

Okay, so I’m sitting here wasting time clicking through blogs and stumbling on at the same time, my brain practically exploding with the ridiculous amount of mostly useless information that is filling it, getting to that point of tuning out, my mouth slightly agape, a little drool coming out of one of the corners, its really sad, and I’m wondering, does MY blog appear in front of other people as often as the blogs of some others appears in front of me? Because there are a few blogs out there that I’ve seen so many times that I just give up on the 20 seconds because I have already read it so many times. Are these people blog clicking for credits every second of their lives? And, if my blog is appearing as often as theirs is, does that mean I’m blog clicking as much as they are? Because I’m not. I’m really not. Maybe they’re buying credits. Yeah, that’s it. These guys are buying credits, and I’m too cheap for that. Plus, there IS such a thing as overexposure.

Anyway, I have been feeling very unproductive lately. I definitely got out of my blog posting habit while my computer was out of commission. Why is that? I dove right back into the blog clicking addiction, so why not the thing where I’m actually using some bit of creativity, or at least brain cells? What is up with that?

What’s the point of blog clicking to earn points and page views if I’m so busy doing it that I never update my blog so that when people come across it, there’s something new for them to read?

And why am I spending so much times talking about blogging? I need to get a life.

We had the most beautiful weather just a few days ago. Now it is cold and crappy again. Ah, spring in Chicago. I really hate it. There are, perhaps, three or four days out of every year when I say something like “Now THIS is why I live here.” I’m starting to think that three or four days isn’t really enough. It’s either too hot or too cold, or too rainy, or too snowy, or not rainy enough, or the lack of snow causes me to pull out my hair because you can’t really send kids out to play in the frozen dirt when it’s 2 degrees outside. I wish I knew how to make a degrees symbol when blogging. Right now I am wearing multiple layers and fleece sweatpants, because you know what? It’s the middle of May, and I have no business turning the heat on again. I felt too much satisfaction turning it off a week or so ago, although when I complain about the house being cold, my husband says, “Turn on the heat, that’s what its there for.” Yeah, that’s what its there for in February. This here is May. I prefer to suffer.

Today, I was driving down the street, a rather busy street near my home, at noon, so there were lots of cars on their way to lunch, and the most unbelievable thing happened. A stunning cream-and-brown HAWK swooped down from a tree to my right, right in front of my car, CARRYING A SQUIRMING SQUIRREL in its claws, or talons, or whatever they’re called. Several people slammed on their brakes. It was really pretty astonishing. I live in a busy and populated suburb of Chicago. There aren’t too many hawks around. There were, however, several foxes that lived in a den on the next block until a house got torn down and they moved away. It was pretty freaky to see a small red fox trotting down the road, making the dogs go wild.

And a few years ago, a deer (we live near several forest preserves, but the closest is on the other side of both a set of train tracks and an extremely busy road) came trotting right down the middle of our street. For a second, I was compelled to follow it, but as I got closer, and saw how it dashed from side to side on the street, trying to avoid the pockets of people who had come out of their houses, and heard how hard its hooves hit the pavement, I realized it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. I did think about trying to get it into my backyard fence and saving it heroically. But then I realized that my husband would probably just shoot it when he got home from work.

I’m babbling. Which is good, as that seems to coincide with what I’ve named this blog. But right now, I need to go microwave some chicken nuggets for my son.

I hope everyone is having a good day/evening/night/moment/dream/life/whatever. Oh lord, there is a woman walking by on the sidewalk with a freakin down parka and a fluffy head-wrap to keep her ears warm. Is it really that cold outside? And if so, why don’t you just sit on the couch under a blanket?