chai-yok
I wonder how this compares to the dukhan.
From Riley.
Friday, December 31, 2010
By Any Other Name
To make copies at my college library, you had to sign out a little box that counted the number of pages. One day, just to amuse myself, I started using aliases: Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, John Wayne Gacy. I was mildly disappointed when no one seemed to notice. So much for starting a trend.
More than 20 years later, I'm still at it, but the names have gotten a little more creative. If, in your travels through cyberspace, you come across a comment by any of the following, you can be pretty sure it's me. Especially if the comment is inappropriate.
Shaniqua Merriweather Post
Sonny von Droolow
F. Squat Pissgerald
Atticus Flinch, Esq.
Cookie Crackhouse
Lois Lame
Forrest Gimp
The Harlot Gimpernel
Justin Gimperlake
Ashtina Cripplegate
Paraplegis Philbin
Nancy Boy Grace
Closemary Rooney
Halista Clockfart
Perv Griffin
Perry Homo
Dizzi Arnaz
Bling Crosby
Bob Hopeless
Joyce DeWitless
Mario Van Feebles
Rev. Fairy Fallwell
Rev. Anal Roberts
Bentdick XVI
More than 20 years later, I'm still at it, but the names have gotten a little more creative. If, in your travels through cyberspace, you come across a comment by any of the following, you can be pretty sure it's me. Especially if the comment is inappropriate.
Shaniqua Merriweather Post
Sonny von Droolow
F. Squat Pissgerald
Atticus Flinch, Esq.
Cookie Crackhouse
Lois Lame
Forrest Gimp
The Harlot Gimpernel
Justin Gimperlake
Ashtina Cripplegate
Paraplegis Philbin
Nancy Boy Grace
Closemary Rooney
Halista Clockfart
Perv Griffin
Perry Homo
Dizzi Arnaz
Bling Crosby
Bob Hopeless
Joyce DeWitless
Mario Van Feebles
Rev. Fairy Fallwell
Rev. Anal Roberts
Bentdick XVI
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
Overheard at the Lake
Dan, scanning a shelf: My god, they already have the George Bush book. George W. Fuckhouse Bush.
Overheard by: Miriam Webster
Overheard by: Miriam Webster
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Out in the Cold
When I was first diagnosed, I walked around thinking: Oh my god, I’m dying! How can that be? It seemed surreal, because I looked and felt in great health. Barely 30, I’d been a gym habitué for years. I ate well, got enough sleep, and spent most of my waking hours in some type of motion. Furthermore, the timing and setting were all wrong: I’d just moved to San Francisco to be with Dan. It was scenic, sunny, beautiful. We were always biking and hiking. He was teaching me racquetball. It only began to sink in when I picked up my tennis racket for the first time in ages and discovered that I could barely hit the ball across the court.
You can’t really function with your head on the executioner’s block – at least I couldn’t – and the sense of immediacy gradually grew duller. I don’t live in denial; it’s more a state of deliberate myopia. At any given point in my progression, I’ve been grudgingly okay with the status quo, but I’ve trained myself not to contemplate the future. It’s a dark and scary place for me; even brief glimpses spark anxiety and depression. Better to focus on the present and count my blessings, something I rarely did before ALS.
Myopia might not be an option if my progression weren’t so slow. As it is, I often have the sense that my deterioration has plateaued. But whenever I’m lulled into cozy complacency, ALS has a way of bitch-slapping me back to reality and reminding me who’s running this ride.
The week before last, I caught a cold. Normally I’m not too aware of the decline in my breathing and swallowing, but the moment I got a little phlegmy it became uncomfortably apparent how compromised both were. With an easily blocked airway, clearing my throat became an exercise in terror, and what would have been a moderate annoyance for a healthy person proved truly harrowing for me – and a humbling reminder of my ever-increasing frailty.
I’m all better now. Well, not all better, but over my cold.
You can’t really function with your head on the executioner’s block – at least I couldn’t – and the sense of immediacy gradually grew duller. I don’t live in denial; it’s more a state of deliberate myopia. At any given point in my progression, I’ve been grudgingly okay with the status quo, but I’ve trained myself not to contemplate the future. It’s a dark and scary place for me; even brief glimpses spark anxiety and depression. Better to focus on the present and count my blessings, something I rarely did before ALS.
Myopia might not be an option if my progression weren’t so slow. As it is, I often have the sense that my deterioration has plateaued. But whenever I’m lulled into cozy complacency, ALS has a way of bitch-slapping me back to reality and reminding me who’s running this ride.
The week before last, I caught a cold. Normally I’m not too aware of the decline in my breathing and swallowing, but the moment I got a little phlegmy it became uncomfortably apparent how compromised both were. With an easily blocked airway, clearing my throat became an exercise in terror, and what would have been a moderate annoyance for a healthy person proved truly harrowing for me – and a humbling reminder of my ever-increasing frailty.
I’m all better now. Well, not all better, but over my cold.
Monday, December 06, 2010
My Favorite Toy
A year ago today, we added a little Sparkle to our lives. Since her actual birthday was a mystery, we decreed it to be December 6th. So today she's nine.
Normally we celebrate canine birthdays with cheeseburgers, but when we did so a couple of weeks ago in memory of Zap, Sparkle threw up. In the middle of the night. In my bed. So we'll see.
Photo by Danny Leibovitz.
Normally we celebrate canine birthdays with cheeseburgers, but when we did so a couple of weeks ago in memory of Zap, Sparkle threw up. In the middle of the night. In my bed. So we'll see.
Photo by Danny Leibovitz.
Sunday, December 05, 2010
Friday, December 03, 2010
Little Riding Hoods
Suffice it to say, the bus was ruled by the law of the jungle: only the strongest and fastest survived. My generation never stormed the beaches of Normandy or got drafted to fight communism, but on that Twinkie-shaped nightmare we waged our own private Vietnam.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
The Late Show
Recent favorites from Sleep Talkin' Man:
"You're a cock and a fuck-up. Any further complaints can be directed toward my arse, where I'm sure you'll receive a warm response."
"You're a complete waste of space. Just go home and apologize to your mother's vagina."
"I don't need you in my life. Not when I've got chocolate."
"I curse you with my words! Taste the venom in my spittle!"
"I like the way you look. The way you walk. Your eyes... But your voice, dear god, your voice!"
"Why don't you stop looking for answers when your questions have as much weight as a turd floating out to sea."
Monday, November 29, 2010
WTMcF?
From a friend:
A holiday gift presented to my teacher friend from a little German boy:
When the teacher stared at it in shock the mother helpfully said, "it's for viping!" and made a wiping gesture.
The best part is that my teacher friend is under 5 ft and the German woman is [Amazonian]. When she demonstrated how to vipe it was at roughly her crotch level so the shorter woman could see. It's a sponge by the way. For cleaning little preschool tables.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
You're Welcome
Examine the person who gave you the possible compliment. Do they have ulterior motives? Do they want to borrow money from you? Sleep with you? If one or both of these things is true, you may accept the compliment, as they are implicitly saying that you are either wealthy or do-able. Those are actually the highest compliments that can possibly be given. You should be very pleased with this.
Boom Box
An air-raid warden inside a shattered telephone box following a bombing raid in London during the Blitz of World War II, 1940. (George Rodger/Magnum Photos)
From Riley.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Plain & Fancy
A few years ago, at a public meeting Dan was attending for work, a woman rose to comment. She had no discernible accent ... except when saying the name of our city, which curiously caused her to become British for just a moment before reverting to Yankdom at the next word.
Alex-ahn-dria. So elegant. So posh. Who wouldn't want to live there?
We've been saying it that way ever since.
Alex-ahn-dria. So elegant. So posh. Who wouldn't want to live there?
We've been saying it that way ever since.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Unbroken
I've always been grateful for my friends, and the more my world shrinks, the more I appreciate them. These are the people who entertain and enlighten me. They keep me engaged in the world despite my physical limitations. They make me want to go on.
One such person is Laura Hillenbrand, who serves me regular helpings of food for thought and makes me laugh at least once a day. She is such a presence in my life, it's surreal to think that we haven't been in the same room since our high school graduation, more than 25 years ago.
Like me, Laura is largely homebound due to ill health. Unlike me, she spends her time and talents productively, finding history's forgotten stories and telling them as only she can. Her first book, Seabiscuit, spent months atop the New York Times bestseller list (and gave me one of my favorite phrases ever: mighty shit Godzilla). It was such a good read that I worried whether she could match it when she started working on her next book. I should have known better.
Unbroken, which hit bookstores today, is the wildly improbable story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner turned bombardier who survived a plane crash and 47 days at sea only to become a Japanese POW. Knowing that books are hard for me to handle, Laura kindly sent a digital copy, and I was delighted to find that her storytelling skills are sharper than ever. Unbroken is truly riveting -- and God knows I'm not given to idle praise. I've been hooked since the preface and had to tear myself away to write this. Now go buy a copy so we can talk about it.
One such person is Laura Hillenbrand, who serves me regular helpings of food for thought and makes me laugh at least once a day. She is such a presence in my life, it's surreal to think that we haven't been in the same room since our high school graduation, more than 25 years ago.
Like me, Laura is largely homebound due to ill health. Unlike me, she spends her time and talents productively, finding history's forgotten stories and telling them as only she can. Her first book, Seabiscuit, spent months atop the New York Times bestseller list (and gave me one of my favorite phrases ever: mighty shit Godzilla). It was such a good read that I worried whether she could match it when she started working on her next book. I should have known better.
Unbroken, which hit bookstores today, is the wildly improbable story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner turned bombardier who survived a plane crash and 47 days at sea only to become a Japanese POW. Knowing that books are hard for me to handle, Laura kindly sent a digital copy, and I was delighted to find that her storytelling skills are sharper than ever. Unbroken is truly riveting -- and God knows I'm not given to idle praise. I've been hooked since the preface and had to tear myself away to write this. Now go buy a copy so we can talk about it.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Focus
I don't mind pictures of scenery (provided it's truly scenic), but most people don't seem to exercise any judgment at all when it comes to sharing photos. If the shutter clicked, the result is considered inherently worthy, even if it's blurry, dark, askew, ugly, boring, irrelevant, or utterly indistinguishable from the previous and subsequent shots.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Today's Top Story
Sarah Palin takes us for a ride
TLC’s approach to programming is, in a nominal way, educational; if you don’t know any little people, or kids whose legs are fused, or families with nineteen children, you don’t really know what their lives are like. The shows are extremely invasive, though; TLC’s programming is all about babies, weddings, and families in extremis, and yet there’s something inhumane at the center of it all. It panders to our curiosity, allowing us to gawk at its subjects for as long as they are willing to be gawked at—which may be longer than is good for them. When it comes to Palin specifically, there is the fundamental problem that some of us don’t want to see or hear any more of her than we have to. And there are those whose objections have a physiological basis as well as an ideological one: the pitch and timbre of her voice, the rhythms of her speech, her syntax, and the way she coats acid and incoherence with cheery musical inflections join together in a sickening synergy that distresses the listener, triggering a fight-or-flight reaction. When Palin talks, my whole being wails, like Nancy Kerrigan after Tonya Harding’s ex-husband kneecapped her: “Why? Why? Why?”
Infirmation Age
In the course of some online genealogical research, my friend Derek found this in the census form of a great-great-grandparent:
Monday, November 08, 2010
Cut Down to Size
Naked in the kiddie pool, I assessed my French cousin and loudly announced that he was missing something. Whereupon the adults, laughing, informed me that the deficit was in fact mine.
I've felt incomplete ever since.
I've felt incomplete ever since.
Friday, November 05, 2010
When I was young, we had a cousin in a wheelchair. She had problems with her kidneys. I think that wheelchair stayed with me. I was fascinated. Anyone with any disability or a deformity -- I am just drawn to things that are different. I've been dying to do a commercial for tampons or for cramp medicine, where I am bent over screaming in pain.Amy Sedaris, from Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People
Source
(303): My niece just called my sister in law a teabagger. I love NPR and it's corrupting influence on small children
Texts From Last Night
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
The Office
From a friend of a friend:
In my cube farm, I have clockwise: a person who is the only competent professional alive, and he's not afraid to say it. A nail clipper. A sunflower seed eater. In the shells. A cell phone addict, complete with yelling so the other person can hear. A cougher who on more than one occasion has stopped breathing. Or vomited. And people wonder why I wear headphones.
Overheard at the Polling Place
Dan, nodding at albiness: There's that woman who's always so friendly to you and basically ignores me.
Michael: We're both despised by society. It's an unspoken bond.
Overheard by: Pariah Carey
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Corpus Crispy
If all goes according to plan, my still-warm carcass will be whisked off to glamorous Baltimore, where the nice folks at Johns Hopkins will pick it over, plucking out my brain and spinal cord for ALS research.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
The Wisdom of Forrest Gimp
Now I understand why old people are so obsessed
with their bowel movements. It’s like money or sex:
the less you have, the more important it seems.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Home Run
From a friend:
I have been reading a bio of Mickey Mantle, who often said hilariously crude things (usually to get people to leave him alone). When Yankee management sent out a questionnaire to former ballplayers asking them "What was your most outstanding experience at Yankee Stadium?" Mickey wrote, "I got a blow-job under the right field bleachers by the Yankee bullpen."
He added, helpfully, "It was about the third or fourth inning. I had a pulled groin and couldn't fuck at the time."
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
The Wisdom of Forrest Gimp
It’s exhausting to be completely dependent on others.
Almost as exhausting as having someone
be completely dependent on you.
Bedbound
I woke up sweating in a straitjacket the other night.
That’s what it felt like, anyway. I was lying on my back, arms at my sides, the covers up to my chinny chin chin. When I tried to pull them down, my left arm stirred minimally, the right one not at all. Upright, I can usually use the left hand to help the right, like a child with a retarded sibling, but that night I got nowhere. In fact, the more I squirmed, the tighter the bind. It was like a full-body Chinese finger trap. Then I tried my legs, but they proved equally useless.
I sleep with a button on each side to summon Dan, but with my hands glued to my hips, they were hopelessly out of reach. Fortunately, he awoke on his own and set me free.
That’s what it felt like, anyway. I was lying on my back, arms at my sides, the covers up to my chinny chin chin. When I tried to pull them down, my left arm stirred minimally, the right one not at all. Upright, I can usually use the left hand to help the right, like a child with a retarded sibling, but that night I got nowhere. In fact, the more I squirmed, the tighter the bind. It was like a full-body Chinese finger trap. Then I tried my legs, but they proved equally useless.
I sleep with a button on each side to summon Dan, but with my hands glued to my hips, they were hopelessly out of reach. Fortunately, he awoke on his own and set me free.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
"You came out of your mom looking like shit.
She thought you were beautiful. Don't know what
scared me most, your looks or her judgment."
Shit My Dad Says
Bazias, Romania: Bats fly in a cave by the river Danube.(Daniel Mihailescu/AFP/Getty Images)
Source, by way of Riley.
Thursday, October 07, 2010
OMG, Mine Too!
"What's your favorite thing about soccer?" a friend asked her five-year-old granddaughter.
The answer was quick and unequivocal: "The boys."
The answer was quick and unequivocal: "The boys."
Friday, October 01, 2010
Sick Humor
"It's nice to believe that these sicknesses just befall us," she said. "We blame them on our environment and insist that they could happen to anyone, but in truth we bring them on ourselves with hatefulness and negativity."
David Sedaris reads a story from his new collection, beginning at 50:50. (The whole episode is good if you have an hour to spare.)
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Streetwise
Devo was showing a little lipstick on a walk the other day, so naturally a small child appeared out of nowhere.
"Why does your dog have that pink thing?" she asked.
"Because he's a boy," said Dan.
It turned out she was referring to a different pink thing entirely -- a skin tag on his leg -- but whatever.
"Why does your dog have that pink thing?" she asked.
"Because he's a boy," said Dan.
It turned out she was referring to a different pink thing entirely -- a skin tag on his leg -- but whatever.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Wing Haven
We're visiting the Iglfolks this week, and yesterday I left the compound for the first time since Saturday, when we arrived.
The draw was Wing Haven, a quirky garden and bird sanctuary in an unlikely location: a residential area near downtown Charlotte. I'd heard rumors that there were some nice old neighborhoods within the city's numbing, soulless sprawl, but this was the first time I'd seen anything historic there since the Ramesses II exhibition when I was in college.
Photos by Dan.
The draw was Wing Haven, a quirky garden and bird sanctuary in an unlikely location: a residential area near downtown Charlotte. I'd heard rumors that there were some nice old neighborhoods within the city's numbing, soulless sprawl, but this was the first time I'd seen anything historic there since the Ramesses II exhibition when I was in college.
From a decidedly inauspicious beginning in 1927 - one city lot with a single tree in the red Carolina clay - the garden eventually grew to three densely planted acres, an oddly successful mix of manicured formality and natural landscape. With narrow, comically buckled brick paths, it wasn't exactly wheelchair friendly, but I took my time and saw almost all of it.
Photos by Dan.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
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