Why hello thar! Welcome to ME! (updated Sept 2020)

So upon announcing on Facebook that i would begin blogging, i asked for suggestions on topics and got a few. After a bit of an explanation about me, i'll address those. If you already know me, or think you do, you can skip this part. Or not, since i may explain a few things you don't know.


First thing you should know is this, unless it is the first letter in a sentence i don't capitalize the letter i when referring to myself. This is because in my head, i don't feel as though i need to be capitalized, i'm not important enough for a proper pronoun. Other people? Why yes, yes they do. I do not.

Ok, me. You will notice that on occasion i mention being broken. I am. Physically and mentally. More physically than mentally. When i was 18, i had any semblance of a normal life taken away from me in an instant.

Yeah, that.  Someone fell asleep at the wheel and tried to end me. (And my daughter, since she was in utero at the time.)
And gave me this in the process:

So, broken i am, for 25 years now.  The reason i got that out of the way is because, being broken, i FORCE myself to find the funny in everything. Even the morbid.  If i offend you, well, then you are offended. Deal with it. Feel free to express it in the comments, but don't expect me to give what is commonly known as a flying fuck. Because i don't. I get stared at on a daily basis because i walk with a cane.  So just a heads up to everyone, when i care: i care deeply, when i feel strongly about something i will discuss and defend. However, i DO agree to disagree with you, since i do think everyone should have their own opinions, formed by their own life. So i will defend your right to your own opinion, even if it's not the same opinion i myself have.

I was once told by someone that if my mind gets any more open, my brain will fall out.  I like that, i do try to keep an open mind about everything. You never know when something will come along and adjust your view of things.  So i keep my mind open to learning new things,  because when you stop learning your brain starts dying. 

I swear, i swear a lot. I enjoy swearing, fuckity fuck fuck fuck. They are words. People give power to words.  You see a lot of "Taking back <insert derogatory phrase here>" Whom are they taking it back from? Mirriam-Webster?  Gimme my redundancy you wretched dictionary! Keep my uvula since it makes me puke anyways. So i swear. I allow anyone aged 13+ around me to swear, because if kids learn when it is acceptable to swear when they are younger then we won't have that breaking in period in college when it's all drinking, fucking and saying "well, fuck shit damn! gimme another beer!"  (Hey, Patty! He's got beer!)

I suppose that's enough about me, let's talk about you. I will only use first names when hitting the topics that people suggested i talk about. Here we go:

Zach: You are attracted to the crazy.  Something in your psyche makes you think that you can help them learn to live life unpsychotically.  You've had the same pattern since high school, you date hot chicks who are batshit insane.  You'll find someone someday that is NOT your usual, then it will work.
(This person lost his life to his personal demons April, 2019)
Dan #1: 42, you know that.

Nicholas: You'll find it here: http://answersinhistory.wordpress.com/ I'm not doing your homework for you.

David:  Chickens are kewl, because when playing MajorMud in the mid-90s and you are bored out of your freaking mind, you HAVE to say something to keep yourself and others entertained. And you know it did.  Geigudr started my chicken collection, i have about 50 now. They are taking over my house.

Dan #2: What disturbs me the most about society is the inability for people to think for themselves.  I think that people need to question everything, EVERYTHING. Even if they think they know everything there is to know about a subject, then they need to look a little closer. You can always find something new about whatever topic you may be researching, even accounting.

People need to do what's best for them and those close to them at the time. This is not to say that i think that people need to live for only themselves, you can get a sort of emotional satisfaction from helping other people out. If you need to live in a dirt hut, do it. If you need to have a glass of strawberry lemonade after dinner each night do it.  But if you have to hurt someone else to get those damn strawberries, don't do it.

Parents need to accept that their children may not turn out to be who they expect them to. I sure as hell didn't.  BUT <--that's a big but they need to accept their children for who they ARE.  If beliefs and opinions differ from what they were raised with, then it's going to be ok. Let it go. Let them be who they are.  And for fuck's sake just deal with any disappointment inside, don't make your kids feel bad for being REAL PEOPLE.  They may not be the people you want them to be, but they are still your kids, and they need your love and support no matter what some crazy priest, some other society people, or some of your other family members say.

Ok, i think i've run out of steam. I haven't hit any controversial topics yet, but believe me, i likely will. And again, if you are offended, go hang out in your corner until you cool off, then come comment and attempt to make me care. Oh, wait, that won't happen.

The Seriousness of Life, and others. Originally posted in 2007 or so. (Updated in 2020)

Once upon a time, there was a banana.  This banana was a world traveler who especially liked going to Bimini.  (Don't ask, it's fiction, bananas can have personality and the like)
This banana, realized, that it probably shouldn't be traveling as much, as it could end up being classified as a terrorist so it decided to stay in bimini, take up skateboarding as a hobby and sell non-fruity drinks.
(My eye keeps twitching and it won't stop.  Damn my eye!)
The coconut began to think, and when it did it vanished in a cloud of illogic, as coconuts aren't allowed to think. The lime arrived 2 hours too late.

This story is dedicated to everyone, for no reason other than i just fucking felt like it. (what does IT feel like anyways?  Can you see it?  Feel it?  Hear it today?  If you can't than it doesn't matter anyway. At leasy Mike Patton says so.)
~~

I was thinking today about the people in my life.  There are many different kinds of people, and they each fill a different aspect of my wild and varied (and slightly off) personality.
There are some whom i consider family, people whom i'm close to, yet some are still very far away.  Some of these include my many wonderful internet friends, people who i've never met in person, but know that when i do finally meet them there won't be any strange awkwardness or false shyness.  Just the love that has been expressed via electronic communications and phone calls.
There are others who seem to keep me young, even when i'm feeling very old.  Those who remind me of who i used to be when i was younger, and bring out those aspects of me.  Those people i cherish, and even though there was a disconnect for a time, we seem to have picked our friendship back up, right where it left off.
There are some who i have some things in common with, like parenting, who i can go to for empathy, sympathy and commiseration.  It's nice to know that i'm truly not alone in the frustrations and joys of life experiences.
There are new friends, who i don't see much, but still fill an essential role in helping me express myself, or at least some aspect of myself.  Usually one that i keep in hiding and only bring out for special occasions.
There are my close friends, who i know i can turn to when i'm lost. And when i'm not.  There are very few people whom i feel like i can just be and not have to worry about reigning myself in.  Or watching what i say.  I love these people, more than they will ever know.
I speak of loving people often.  I find that people are not told that they are loved and appreciated enough.  I love everyone in my life, each in their own individual way.  I try to give as much as i receive, and even though sometimes it is fairly subtle, it's there.
There are people whom i miss dearly, and have left a hole in me which i can never fill.  These people need to know they are still loved, with as much intensity as there was when we were close friends, even though for various reasons, we can't be together, even as friends.  It hurts, but i will always treasure the memories that we made.
So if you are reading this, and recognize yourself in any of my descriptions, or know you are in there somewhere, even if you can't place it, know that you are loved, appreciated and needed.  And no matter how long it's been since we've talked, for whatever reason, know that you make me smile when i think of you.  Even if i just talked to you 10 minutes ago. Or 10 years ago.

Written January 31, 2009, but is still very relevant, even in 2020.

What is success?
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by
a healthy child, a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed
easier because you have lived;
This is to have succeeded.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I read this in a book, and it touched me.  I have always lived by the creed that if i can make one person laugh per day, then my day is complete.  From past experiences i have learned that you can't help everyone, no matter how much you want to, but can help some.  Sometimes just by sharing a differing opinion and making them think. Or just sitting quietly listening, really listening, which is truly a lost skill in the 21st century.   Every person i've ever known has taught me something about life, some life lesson that has engraved itself into my psyche.  Not all have been positive, not all have been painless, but all have had an effect on me, and the way i live my life. 

I try to live to learn, and i'm trying to teach my kids the same.  Everything in life has something you can learn from it, even if you don't realize the lesson until later.  Through the years i have done some incredibly stupid things, as well as made some very smart decisions.  All of these have been influenced by people, and situations i've experienced in life. 

Every friend i've ever had has been loved by me.  Many never knew it, i'm trying to make sure all of the people currently active in my life are aware.  Love is not always romantic, love is not always passionate. Love is sometimes a calm, steady pillar of strength.  i love and am loved.  There are some people who i love from afar, as it's too hard to be close again.  There are some people who i love from close by.  All are held close to my heart.

I have made friends via the interwebs who live all over the world.  I wish i could gather them up and bring them to my dungeon, um erm, home, for there are some i would love to just be able to hug, whenever, wherever.  They all know they are loved by me.

I have no idea why i'm writing about love again, i find when i'm feeling depressed that it's hard to accept that i'm lovable, so i guess i want to make sure that everyone else knows that they are lovable and loved.
So, even if i've never talked to you, met you, or just communicated with you by text, know that you are loved. 

Memorial day! (Originally from 2011; Updated in September 2020)

Ok, so it's Memorial day. One thing to say, Memorial means remember the dead, Veteran's Day means remember both the living and the dead. So today, remember the dead who have lost their lives fighting for us.

You can wait until November, for Veteran's day.  I don't. I ACTIVELY thank anyone in uniform for doing their jobs. Firefighters, Police Officers, anyone in a Military uniform. It was pretty funny to watch the local Firefighters see my kids come running up to them, say "Thank you for doing your jobs and keeping us safe!" then just run away.  Sometimes they can get a "Your welcome" response. But most are just shocked that people are willing to express their thanks. My kids are grown up now, i hope they are still doing this when they go out in public.

Police Officers are the funniest, they always look REALLY confused.  Most of them are used to people walking up to them and telling them to go fuck themselves. (Updated for 2020: Police Officers are REALLY greatful nowadays for people who thank them for trying to keep us safe, not enough people are willing to look past the fact that not ALL police are bad, but those who are bad should be culled from any position of authority.)  My kids don't even usually want the stickers that are offered.

Remember 09/11/01, remember all the 350+ who were in uniform who died. Remember all the people who died in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, Korea, Vietnam, the middle east wars.  No matter what you feel about the wars, honor our dead. Honor those who were ended so that you may live, even those who are STILL being killed in action now, in 2020.

~~

Enough seriousness, have you ever wondered what it would be like to not see colors correctly? I wonder the opposite, i'm apparently color confused. Shades are confusing, which is why i tend to wear mostly black.  I can pass the driving thing that we have to look into, so that's not a problem, but picking out clothes is much easier when it's all black. It's fucking funny. When wearing clothes, part black, part something else, cause black goes with everything.

I have a field trip to go on with my youngest housemonkey at the end of the week, so i'm going to import some of my notes, and blogs over from other places to cover Wednesday thru Friday.  I will be trying to take everyone's advice and write everyday, but since i'll be attempting to teach haiku's to 5th graders, you'll hear back from me on Saturday at some point.
(The field trip happened, my getting serious about blogging did not.)
Oh, and for Lecia and Michael:  fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

An apology and a very bitter, but still relevant rant. Originally from July 2011, updated to current day.

So i WAS going to write every day, but that fell by the wayside. As anyone can tell you when you hurt more due to weather changes some days just getting out of bed can be a challenge. Not that i have many faithful readers, but to the few that have been encouraging me i apologize for not writing since the beginning of last month. And then Life got even further in the way.

Now for my rant.

Did anyone happen to catch this article? Four things I learned after being hit by a truck (Cached version)

While i respect that Heather Lende had a hard time of it, she DID have a truck drive over her pelvis, breaking it in 6 places. She got to live most of her life (by my calculations 39 years) without the constant pain she alludes to at the end of the article.

The good news is that six years after the accident, on mornings after a strenuous hike or staying up too late with friends, I can wake up and say, "I feel like I've been hit by a truck," and laugh.

She can still take HIKES. You know what, i'd like to be able to walk 25 FEET without the assistance of a cane or another human being.

But wait, i'm skipping ahead in my anger. Let's start from the beginning shall we?

In the beginning she talks about how, at 45, everyone in life has been hit by the proverbial truck. Divorce, Job Loss, Cancer, etc. Well, yes, life hands you a bunch of shit while you live. It's called life experience, anyone who doesn't have some by 45 needs to come out of the bubble they have been living in and start living. By the time you are 45, which i'm not, i would expect you to have some baggage from life. I'm more than a decade younger than she is and boy-howdy do i have baggage.

Her being hit by a truck. A Chevy three-quarter ton king cab pickup truck's rear wheel ran over her lap. Stop. I would like some more information at this point. Where on earth WAS she if she was in a place for a truck to run over her pelvis? Was she sitting by the side of the road for a parade? Was she lying in the road protesting something? She herself says the driver wasn't drunk or speeding, it was just a mistake. How the fuck do you "mistakenly" drive over someone's lap? I want a diagram here. I'm guessing she words it this way for two reasons: 1)legal settlement has occurred; 2)Later in the article she talks about forgiveness.

Next she says:

It nearly killed me, and I later learned it should have. I look back now and see that I was lucky. My time wasn't up yet. I also now know that there are huge lessons that can only be learned from a terrible, unsolicited and unavoidable crisis. Which is not to say I wish you one, rather, to let you know that it's not all bad.

Yeah, her and my accidents are not that different really. Except she was 39, had a chance to live life, do many things, and received good enough care in the same city i was cared for in that she can go hiking. I, on the other hand, was 18, four and a half months pregnant. I didn't have the chance to do ANYTHING with my life, since as of that day almost 16 years ago i've gotten progressively worse. I would LOVE to have the care immediately following my accident that she says she received, excellent hospital care, rehab, etc. Guess what, those super Seattle doctors i saw, at two different hospitals, put a rod in my leg (my left thigh, no cast, just the rod) and sent me home after 5 days and said "don't walk on it" No rehab, one follow up appointment to take staples and sutures out, and a see ya. I guess my time wasn't up yet either, and neither was my daughters since i was still pregnant and any soft tissue damage done to my lower back (lumbar), pelvic region, and legs was ignored by everyone. So as the pregnancy progressed to full term, my whole midsection basically froze. Oh wait, let's not forget the nerve damage in that area from breaking the seat with my body. I also broke my nose, 4 of my teeth, and crushed a sinus. But, like Heather, it apparently wasn't my time yet either. I didn't get that extra 20 years of normality before my life was taken away from me, like you did. I have never lived in blissful ignorance of my own mortality, nor from others since i also have a case of PTSD i've been dealing with as well.

So now let us look at the 4 things she learned after being hit by a truck.

1)Don't assume bad things only happen to other people. Okay, um, we've already been there. We already talked about the proverbial trucks that hit us during our lifetimes. We already know that bad things happen to us. My 11 year old son knows this since he was diagnosed with an incurable lifelong disease earlier this year. I am NOT going to say that horrid cliche about the word "assume" either. Bad things happen to everyone. You know what though? Good things happen too. I'm going to start assuming that good things only happen to other people. I see enough of the internet acronym FML to conclude that bad things happen to everyone everyday.

2)Forgiveness is freedom. No, it's not. I forgave the fucker who fell asleep at the wheel in, coincidentally, a Chevy three quarter ton pickup truck and attempted to not only kill ME at 18, but my unborn child. (You may yell all you want about teenage pregnancies later, but this is relevant to this rant.) I've forgiven him multiple times. But every day that i wake up and i can barely breathe because my back muscles are so tense i can't draw a full breath, i have to try to forgive him again. There is no freedom from forgiving a little punk who fell asleep at the wheel because he did too much one day and then blamed ME for the accident to all of the people we mutually knew. And please GAWD don't tell me that my faith and GAWD will help me through this, i tried that, it didn't work. My pain reminds me everyday that GAWD wants me here for a reason. That's all i'm getting out of GAWD. So yes, i'm fucking bitter. I'm bitter because i can't take walks with my kids. I can't go play catch with my son. I can't teach him how to ride his bike. I can't take walks in the evening with my 15 year old daughter, just to connect with her, or take her shopping for more than a short period of time for things like prom dresses and things like that. So, i'm sorry, until your truck takes away your whole life, fuck forgiveness.

3)People are good. Heather, i invite you to spend a day in MY shoes. Because i was hit by a truck, i now have to walk with a cane full time and use a disabled placard. By the luck of genes, i look younger than i am, and therefore i get GLARED at when i use a handicapped spot at every store i go to. Then i get out of my van with my cane, and i see them look away ashamedly.

I'm happy that you appreciate all the people who took part in your care. They get paid to do this, and i hope you were thankful to them WHILE they were taking care of you, because they work very thankless jobs, and a random thank you in an article doesn't mean much.

Everyone's experiences are different. Due to the lack of any real aftercare that i received i had to have the humbling experience of having my mother bathe me because i couldn't walk, couldn't feed myself, and was pregnant. I thanked her daily. I thanked my younger brother who would come home from school and make me a sandwich because my hand was also broken and i could barely get around on my walker.

You really don't have to have a major crises to learn that people are good. Look around you, there are good people everywhere. Just as there are bad people everywhere.

4)Be grateful and laughter will follow. This i can almost agree with except the explanation killed it for me:

Finally, there is something oddly empowering about surviving the worst. It has given me a kind of gratitude I never felt so deeply before. The good news is that six years after the accident, on mornings after a strenuous hike or staying up too late with friends, I can wake up and say, "I feel like I've been hit by a truck," and laugh.

I don't feel empowered about surviving the worst. I feel like shit. I feel like some days i want to quit. What power has living through hell given you? Woo Hoo, i'm not dead yet? Fuck you, reaper?

I have gratitude that i can get my body up and moving most days. I have gratitude that my daughter survived the accident without any damage to her gestating little body. I have gratitude that i was able to have another child before my body said "do it again and you'll end up in a wheelchair for life." I may still end up in a wheelchair as it is. I have to use one for any all day outings, like trips to the zoo or anything else i try to do with my family.

Your good news is that, six years after the accident, on mornings after a strenuous hike she can wake up the next morning and and joke about feeling like she got hit by a truck.

My good news is this, laughter can get you through most anything. I spend everyday trying to find something funny about life. I spend everyday trying to make at least one person smile because watching someone else smile makes me smile inside. It's too bad that i don't leave my house much, because a fucking truck hit me.

Heather Lende, if you were trying to write a cheerful article about surviving a crisis and coming through it with an upbeat attitude, you failed. This i would actually call an epic fail. You come across as a condescending bitch to those of us who suffer on a daily basis the after effects of being hit by a truck. Physically, financially, and emotionally.

I'm going to throw in one more thing. "Being hit by a truck" is a term that is used by more than just people who have been in car accidents. Ask ONE single person with Fibromyalgia to describe that term, or anyone else with what is known as a "hidden illness." I bet they would give you my proverbial finger too.