Dalton Chad Everett

I want to tell you about Chad. I wanted this to be a video update, but I don’t trust my face to stay screwed on properly and my mouth to make the right words, so I present him to you in written format. I hope that’s okay.

I began working at Stream in 1998. It was two months after I’d left my entire world and moved sight unseen to Portland. The prejudice against Californians turned out to be a real thing and not even Dairy Queen called me back, but a temp agency hired me at last, to work a call center doing tech support. It was $10.58 an hour, more than I’d ever earned before. I was excited. Excited to be employed, and to be among some of My People – Stream didn’t have a dress code, really, only that you hopefully didn’t wear offensive shirts and your clothes weren’t full of holes. Bathing seemed to be optional for some of them, but that is beside my point. Being allowed to wear what you wanted, to be who you were offline at work, too, provided you could pretend to be an adult on the phone? That attracts a lot of the Strange, and a lot of the Geeks. I met a lot of amazing people there, some very precious weirdos who I carried with me the rest of my life.

There was this one guy, though. I became peripherally aware of him at some point, always immaculately dressed in a crisply ironed button down shirt, hair perfectly slicked down in a ponytail, and thought to myself, ‘Wow, that dude is trying too hard. This is STREAM.’ I found out he was a manager. Figures.

And then he became MY manager, when I got sick of fixing paper jams and explaining to people why their laser printer was not printing the same color as what they had on their screens. I left laserjet land and moved to the BigTime Software contract where I supported a very popular photo editing program and ..spent my time explaining to people why the color on their prints was not the same as what the program showed on the screen. He was a pretty good manager, it turned out. I found out he was also fluent in Sarcasm, like me, and he had a sense of humor so dry that diaper companies used it to improve their product absorbency. He was that rare breed of manager that can pass down mandates from the Uppers and fully admit that it was complete horsecrap but we had to do it anyway so suck it up. Without pissing you off. He did what was in his limited power to make the job less miserable while still getting work done.

I learned to like him. I learned about his GINORMOUS cat, as he showed me a picture of the beast with his work badge alongside him for scale. I learned about his habit of ironing his shirts in the morning as a moment of peaceful zen before starting his day. I learned that the goofiest things would split his face into a ridiculous grin. And he smiled so easily. He gracefully accepted the teasing of his employees – seriously, when you get a bunch of creative misfits together, stick them on the phones repeating the same things over and over, and then give them all incredibly powerful photo and video editing tools, there is GOING to be mischief, and it is GOING to hit the management. He didn’t care. He thought it was funny. I learned he accepted his own mistakes with a grinning grace. He baffled and then charmed me with a habit of ending conversations with “…So there.” It’s a brilliant way to end conversations that don’t really have an end; you’re just sort of finished talking, and you don’t know quite how to end it so you can leave. Chad figured it out and taught me, and to this day I still end conversations that way, sometimes.

He wasn’t one of the people I took with me when I left Stream, and I couldn’t tell you why. I left him there and he became a memory of a manager. I am fortunate as hell that the Universe didn’t let that stay that way for long. It turned out that one of my dear friends, and someone I DID take with me, dated him on the sly, which I found out years later, and eventually they married. So I was going to keep him anyway, but the connection was made even more permanent as he moved on and became a manager at a company I later applied for (and didn’t get the job). A dear friend moved up here to Oregon and worked under him. The company was near my home, and when I got a job at Intel at last, I would occasionally see him getting dropped off for work, and I would stand around and chat with them for awhile. When he found out I worked for Intel, he was happy for me. “Well I could be working HERE,” I told him, “but you declined to hire me.”

He grinned and flipped me off and his wife laughed.

Every time I saw them, they were laughing and smiling. It automatically brightened my day when our commutes overlapped. Life continued, and I kept in touch through Facebook, and he wrote a book and I was impressed as hell, and vicariously enjoyed their company through their posts and their pictures, always smiling, always laughing. I made promises to myself over and over, I really MUST hang out with them some more, I adore these people.

When I was diagnosed with ALS, they both expressed words of support and offers of help, and I knew they were one of the small handful that actually MEANT it. Everyone meant well, but there were a select few that I knew I could actually rely on if required. Sure, you automatically say, “please call if you need anything”, but would you really be willing to come over twice a week and scoop my cat box when I can’t? They would. They totally would. If I needed to, I could have couch surfed until I was in hospice, they would have done anything to help me, and I was almost terrifyingly overwhelmed with it all. She always had words of empathy and support and love, and he always had a sarcastic joke to lift me up. And I adored them both and thought, we really ought to get together.

On March 5th, his wife Dawni posted: “To our friends and family, yesterday what we thought would be a routine doctor’s visit turned into a little more. … He will be fine, but he needs some extra love and care headed his way.” Those of us who knew Dawni knew damned well that if things truly would be fine, she would not be so vague and pointedly cheerful. “Don’t worry,” she wrote, and we knew to worry. A lot. And slowly the story came out. An emergency surgery had revealed Stage IV cancer. Inoperable. Weeks to live, maybe. And a fundraiser page was raised and everyone turned out in DROVES to help. All of us were stunned, shocked, helpless, angry that such an awful thing was happening to two amazing people. And I watched her, overwhelmed by the love and support, and I watched him smile and joke through it all, and I was granted perspective.

I saw my own situation from the outside. I saw what it was to have no idea what to do with terrible news and helplessly heap love instead. I saw someone ELSE completely overwhelmed with sudden love and support they didn’t know exist. I got to be a part of the uplift instead of the uplifted. I got to experience, too, the frustration of being willing and able to help someone who didn’t know how to ask for help. I came to know the singular frustration it is, to know someone needs things but is so fiercely unwilling to burden someone else with their troubles that they will never ask. And it taught me to let people help me, with better grace. I’m still not there. But I’m learning, and Chad and Dawni taught me.

Dawni threw him a Life Party, which I’ve posted about and STILL think is the best thing ever. Seriously. Do this. It was amazing to see them both, and be able to celebrate his life with him present, and see and hear all of these strangers telling stories about him in a way I never knew him. And because I DID know him a little, I gave him “I’m Dying” cards to play, and he loved them, even if others at the party thought them morbid. He and I thought them hilarious and that’s all that mattered. He and I spoke for awhile, but not long as he was the guest of honor, and he asked how I was doing, and I wanted to say, “Who cares? This is about YOU.” I offered what help I could, with some of the bureaucratic BS that comes with dying as I’d had a year’s head start on him, and we made plans to hang out. Soon. Chad and I vowed to outlive each other. And I left that party, enriched and uplifted and so grateful that both of these people had ever come into my reality and even more graced that they stayed.

When I saw him next, Danielle and I visited them at home. I was hoping to provide him with support as a fellow dying person even though our roads were vastly different. I was hoping Danielle could be support for Dawni as the practically-significant-other primary caretaker of a dying person. Nothing ever got that heavy, because it was Chad and Dawni. We ate dinner, we played card games, we talked about comics and cats, and we laughed a lot. Dawni apologized that the kitchen wasn’t clean, as I prepared us a dessert, and that frustration kinda reared up again – “woman, we are HERE, we are ABLE, LET US DO SOME DAMNED DISHES FOR YOU.” But I shut it down, for all of the hundred times someone has offered to help me and I wasn’t able to ask them, “Yes, can you take the garbage to the curb for me? It’s too heavy.” And I marveled at that mindset from the outside, and gained a new appreciation for how frustrating it can be for other people, and I became humble and shut my mouth. And made delicious syllabub. When we talked about the heavy things, it was with a defiant levity – gallows humor is strong in all four of us. I found that I didn’t have to explicitly offer support for him, and neither did he, for me. We both knew what the other faced, and in silence we shared it and in laughter we beat it down.

As Danielle and I left, Chad and I both promised each other another 30 birthdays. And we both knew we were lying.

Things progressed at a much faster pace for Chad than I, and in October, things became more urgent, and I made good on my promise to visit again. I was aware peripherally of the procedures and whatnot from Facebook, but I was able to get an unfettered view into things from the two of them in person. Call it the privilege of being in The Dying Club. I knew something about it all, so I was allowed to know more than others because I could understand it like no one else could. I use the word privilege sincerely here – I am truly glad I was trusted with information because I could handle it. Because I knew. It was a much quieter visit, with Chad drifting in and out of sleep, but the conversation was still full of laughter and comics and cats. He asked sincerely how I was doing, and again, I wanted to counter, “WHO CARES? THIS IS ABOUT YOU.” He never let it be about him. Even at his worst, he wanted to know how I was doing. And we talked frankly about timelines and outcomes, and when I left we bumped fists and swore another 30 birthdays. And we both knew we were lying.

In early November, Chad declined enough to need hospice visits at home, and on the 16th of November, they moved him into hospice care to wait the end. We all held our breaths, and shared stories on his facebook community page, and laughed and wept and waited. We talked fondly of him, continued to support his wife the best we could, and be grateful to the people who kept us informed, the outer circles to Chad’s center. We pushed support in, we encouraged dumping out, and we waited. We were told he had hours left. We offered love and support, and we waited.

He passed quietly the night of November 21st.

That night, the world lost a hell of a sense of humor, a wry wit, and an infectious grin. Dawni lost her best friend and her true love and her partner. Her parents lost a son. Many lost a friend. I lost a primal and important connection to my terminal disease. I lost another perspective from the other side, and a new perspective from the same side. I lost a touchstone, a sanity check, an explicit permission to think this is all as funny as I think it is, sometimes.

I lost a brother in darkness.

Chad’s struggle is done, now, and we’re all relieved. It was a hard fight, and impossible odds, and we miss him to pieces. We still rail against the universe for its unfairness – why him? Why her? Why wring the joy out of such an amazingly effervescent soul? Why make it so hard? There are no answers for him. There are none for me. It just is, and all I can do is be grateful I was allowed to know him for a while, and share his joy, and be contaminated by his refusal to stop smiling, ever. His big, dumb, goofy grin. Seriously, it was ridiculous.

He was amazing. And I thought you should know about him.

So there.

“The only thing sadder than a cripple… Is a hobbled cripple!”

Some things are bound to happen. Even if you don’t want them to, you know they’re coming. And so it is with a sense of inevitability that I write this post about the time that I fell down and actually hurt myself. I was trying to pick up a pile of laundry off the floor to carry it to my bed – THREE FEET AWAY – and went down like a rock in a small space and sprained my stupid ankle.

After every fall, every misstep that almost results in a fall, there’s a period of reflection and reconstruction of the events that led up to it. How could I have prevented that? There was no period of reflection this time, there was me, writhing in pain in the hallway screaming FUCK FUCK FUCKING FUCK OW FUCK OW OW OW OW WHAT THE FUCKING FUCKHEADED FUCKING SHIT FUCK

See also: Lalochezia.

Right about when I ran out of swear words and began repeating myself, it occurred that I’d probably done something bad this time. The swearing went on longer than usual and the pain wasn’t going away. Now the swearing and OW OW OW was joined by YOU STUPID BITCH WHY DIDN’T YOU BE MORE CAREFUL TRYING TO LIFT THE FUCKING LAUNDRY WHAT IF WE BROKE SOMETHING FUCKING OW GODDAMMIT FUCK SHIT FUCKING STUPID BITCH IT WAS THREE FUCKING FEET AWAY YOU COULDA JUST PUSHED THE FUCKING CLOTHES ACROSS THE FLOOR WHY DID YOU TRY TO PICK THEM UP HOLY FUCKING GOD OW OW OW OW FUCK

Eventually, the pain let up enough that I could breathe, and I tried propping my foot up against the wall to elevate it as I lay on the floor, whining a monotone mantra of ow ow ow ow ow the whole time, but my leg didn’t even have the strength to keep my foot up. So I did the next best thing! I curled into fetal position and sobbed my eyes out! With a whole lot of feeling sorry for myself and fuck this disease and it’s not fair and ow ow ow and do I need to go to Urgent Care or not. I eventually got myself up, found that I could in fact put pressure on it but if I turned it any way from there it was suffering city. I fetched an ice pack from the freezer, a soda, and made a little nest out of my bed with my ankle elevated on ice and cried.

It sucked a lot, is what I’m saying. It has been a super shitty stressful week, and it was just the icing. And I lost my shit for awhile, took ativan, made contingency plans to work from home the next day if I needed to, and went to sleep. Eventually. Sort of. In pieces.

So today my ankle is twice its usual size and very tender, but still has full range of motion, even if some of those motions are owwie. So I don’t believe it to be broken, so I decided I didn’t need urgent care to tell me what to do, and took anti-inflammatories, iced my ankle and elevated it and stayed off my feet as much as possible. Cause that’s what they’d say and then charge me money after costing me hours of my life and having to put on real clothes.

And despite all of the crying and hurt and bullshit, I am grateful that I had an army at my disposal at all times. Even though I never reached out to them. If I’d decided to go to the ER last night, I’d have had a handful of available rides. If I’d needed anything today, I’d have had several people willing to bring it to me. Once I announced my stupidity to Facebook, I had many offers of help. At no point did I feel helpless and alone. I was very crisis-management mode once the writhing was over, and even in the writhing I was mentally giving myself a time limit before I called someone for help, and I knew it would be there. That’s awesome and can not be understated. GO GO GODZILLA SQUAD.

I’m giving it another night, and tomorrow I’ll see if I can hobble along with the walker or something. Cause I favor my right foot when walking with the cane, so of course I hurt the left one. And walking with the cane on my left hand feels weird as it’s not my dominant hand. So maybe the walker for a bit. We’ll see. But for now, I have a nest, an ice pack, chemicals for the pain, warm cats, Good Eats on TV, and a friend bringing me dinner later. I’m sitting pretty.

Even if my ankle ain’t so pretty.

You can blame Jack for the title. It’s how he reacted when I told him what happened.

Lalochezia

There’s something magical about swearing.

Lalochezia means relieving stress or pain through swearing. La-Lo-KEE-Zee-Uh. It derives from the Greek words for ‘speech’ (lalia) and defecation (chezo). It is literally Greek for ‘talking shit’. That, too, is magical.

If you’ve been paying attention, you know it’s not just a word, it’s a way of life for me. There are times that swearing IS appropriate, thank you. I’ve always used it to promote catharsis and relief when angry, sad, or stressed out. I swear casually too, but I wish I didn’t. My casual swearing isn’t nearly as profane as my lalocheziac screeds, but I would prefer to keep the swearing to important times. Overuse of the words diminish their power – a mouthbreathing stoner kid using the word ‘fuck’ doesn’t have nearly the same punch as say, a priest using it.

I’m sure you’ve known the relief. That day everything went wrong, your alarm didn’t go off, you missed the bus, you were late to work, the coffee was cold, you realized halfway through the day your underwear was on backwards, the printer jammed, they were out of your favorite thing in the vending machines, your boss griped at you for something out of your control, it suddenly started raining when you left work and you weren’t dressed for it; just, a thousand and one small insults piled up on top of each other all day. And then you got home, kicked off your shoes, grateful to be home and safe, and banged your toe on the couch which made you drop your mail all over the floor. All of the microfrustrations of the day exploded out of you in one vocal outburst.

I bet you didn’t say “darn it”.

There are times when it just isn’t enough to say, “she wasn’t very nice”. “Mannnn, FUCK her.” It doesn’t convey enough of your frustration with the problem to tell someone, “I couldn’t get the door open to get the cat out of the room before he barfed on the carpet”, but it works perfectly when you tell them, “I couldn’t get the fucking door open in time so the cat puked on everyfuckingthing.” And many times I am betting a mental FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!! brought you a little relief.

And it really did! Studies have proven that swearing brings pain relief. Here’s one, from Scientific American. Mythbusters proved it. And here’s an article in Time that explains why it works best if you don’t normally swear a lot.

SCIENCE IS ON MY SIDE, BITCHES.

I’ve loved that there is a word for it. It delights me when there actually is a word or a term for that thing, like ‘esprit de l’escalier’ for the devastating comeback you think of after the argument’s already over or “semantic satiation” for when you see/hear a word so often it ceases to mean anything. Language is amazing, even if it’s foul. Sometimes, ESPECIALLY when it’s foul. I found out about the Greek meaning a handful of days ago, and was delighted all over again.

I felt a connection to that word, and specifically to what this site is. ALS:FTS has brought me vast relief through swearing about the things that suck, and proclaiming the things that don’t. I get very articulate and sweary when I’m angry, and babbling incomprehensibly when I’m happy, and honestly kind of boring when I’m neither of these things. I like lalochezia as a word, as a concept, and as a therapy. On a whim yesterday, I checked to see if lalochezia.com was available. It was. I toyed briefly with the idea of moving this blog over there, but a bunch of logistical reasons made me leave this alone. Like, domain redirecting and I’ve got cards printed with this URL and all of my email addresses and then what the hell do I do with gifhy.com? I’ve already got two other domains that are just old sites parked somewhere because I can’t bear to bring them down.

And then I had a thought. (It’s rare, but it occurs.) One minor complaint I’ve had about this site is that someone couldn’t freely share it because of the swearing. And I often get people self-editing themselves when they tell me about a bad day, “I feel stupid ranting about this to you when you’ve got real problems”. And that? That is a rant on its own. Which you’ll see. Because it occurs to me that there are a million and one little complaints that we have, all the time, and we don’t feel like we’re allowed to express it properly. We have to be calm and collected instead of just screaming FUCK FUCKFUCKING FUCKER FUCKHEADS!!! at the top of our voice. This site isn’t meant to be nothing but sweary rants, but being allowed to DO that here has brought me peace and catharsis. And I think more people could use that.

I don’t know if it will be a thing people use, but I’ve registered lalochezia.com and I’ve created a safe space for us to vent. Create an account. Prove to me you’re human. And then write about what makes you angry. Use as many swears as you like. The more the better. Complain about everything. Your shitty boss. The barista that shortchanged you. Your vague sense of discomfort and displacement in a dispassionate universe. Or just write the word FUCK 270 times if that makes you feel better.

Let’s fuck shit up.

First Time For Everything: Dropping

Also this weekend! And something I wanted to mark down, and something I should be keeping track of, and so you get this little nubbin post.

Saturday was the first time I dropped something. I was washing a plate in the sink, and I dropped it, and it chipped against a stoneware bowl. I remarkably did NOT lose my shit! Just, “well fuck, I can’t replace this plate, they don’t make them anymore. I guess this goes with the chipped bowl from the same set, now.” Disappointed. Upset. But shit held together.

It’s not the last thing I will drop. It won’t be the last thing I break when my hands prove unable to handle the weight. Maybe if something shatters spectacularly, something I love, that will be the time I lose it. Instead, I turned the plate over, found the chip of crockery in the sink, and sighed. Time to get lighter plates.

Further conversations with my stupid body, 3AM edition

A combination of Fall weather finally arriving and making things colder, depression, lethargy, vacation recovery, and a grab bag of other things have seen to it that I’ve been sleeping a lot lately. Saturday was for sleeping. I was in bed Friday at 6PM, screwing around on my laptop and doing my nails, asleep probably around 10, awake and panicky at midnight, medicated and back to sleep until around 11AM. I stayed in bed and played with my phone until about 1:30, took a nap until 6. I wore myself out cleaning the cat box area (THE LITTER ROBOT IS STILL SERIOUSLY THE MOST AMAZING THING YOU GUYS) and vacuuming; emptying the litter tray and refreshing the puppy pads, then running the vacuum cleaner in a couple of spaces was the most energy I was able to put forth, and even that had me dripping in sweat and tired, I’ve been feeling very…fally? lately. Like, any minute I’m going to crash to the ground, because I’m tired and my legs aren’t holding up and my knees keep buckling and there have been a few close calls, so I’ve been very cautious and conserving my energy as much as I can. There were a few times when running the vacuum that I was leaning on the machine for support and nearly dropped a couple of times.

Yesterday though, yesterday was a normal day for the first time in foreeeever. I woke up at 10, and was actually rested. This has not happened in recent memory. I still took a nap from like 2 – 5, but it was a leisure thing and not a necessity and Sunday was otherwise a really normal energy level, productive day. It felt AMAZING. Did loads of laundry, put said laundry away, organized some stuff, put things away, was treated to a short visit by dear friends with a Hello Kitty Cafe delivery (HELLO KITTY MACARONS!), more Skyrim, showered, played with my phone some more and chatted online with friends, and was trying to sleep by 10PM.

Which is when my brain and body decided hey, fuck you. Which was exacerbated by my cat Parmesan, who is old and skinny and the room was cold, and so he insists on sleeping on my face because that’s where the warm air comes out. Which is not conducive to breathing. AT ALL. I have a fuzzy blanket that I usually wrap over him, but it had just come out of the dryer and was still a little damp, turns out, so I shoved it aside and tried to just sleep with this cat on my face and my other cat Ianto trying to nuzzle me too and scratching at the covers to come under but he doesn’t really want to come under the blankets, he wants to stand there half covered while I skritch his head and the moment I stop he will go away. So while I have one cat pawing at me, another dancing on my face with his icy little paws, one blanket short in a cold room, the noise of my upstairs neighbors doing laundry, I somehow managed to fall asleep around 11.

At midnight, I woke suddenly out of a dead sleep. Which is a thing I’ve been doing lately, and it sucks a lot. Like, solid peaceful sleep and then an hour later OH HEY YOU ARE SUDDENLY AWAKE AND YOUR HEART RATE IS OUT OF CONTROL AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHY! WHEEEEE! WAS IT A DREAM? WAS THERE A NOISE? WE WILL NEVER KNOW! HAVE FUN CALMING DOWN AND GETTING BACK TO SLEEP!

My heart is pounding and I’m cold. I want another blanket.

good luck getting up loser

Getting out of bed is becoming a Herculean task, and not because I just don’t wanna. Physically pulling myself out of bed is an effort, which is made worse because I sleep with body pillows and cats. I mean, really, my bed is ridiculous. And comfortable as hell. There’s half of it covered with a ginormous stuffed squid and a cat bed with a heating pad under it, and then a body pillow dividing my side from the squid side, and then a reverse moat of pillows shoring up the other side, so I’m in a sort of delightful pillowy trench when I sleep, with a weighted blanket over my legs. So if I want to get up, not only do I have to dislodge a cat who WILL NOT GET OFF OF ME, I have to wiggle away from the weighted blanket, toss the covers off of me while Parmesan keeps trying to get back on me, and remove the barrier pillow like some velvet rope allowing me exclusive access to Out Of Bed, swinging my legs over the side and lifting my body up by gripping the side of the mattress and pulling. It’s ridiculous, and I’m getting a new bed in January that is awesome and adjustable. But yeah, it’s a Whole Thing, getting out of bed.

don’t fall down LOL

Well that’s kind of up to Body, now. It’s been a jerk lately what with the knee buckling and not being able to vacuum one stupid room without leaning on walls. OK. Mission accomplished, blanket retrieved (mmmm fuzzy) and OK GOD PARM GIVE ME A MINUTE TO SETTLE IN. Ok. Sleeps now.

1AM: twitch! twitch! your arm is twitchy! ha ha ha! and your hand! twitch! Twitch! Isn’t this fun! It’s like being poked with a stick from the inside!

2AM: hey. hey. hey.

What?

Your foot itches. Like, REALLY BAD.

Goddammit. Who cares. Sleep.

Itchy! We’re SUPER ITCHY! itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy!

OH MY GOD. FINE. *scratch*

Itchy! itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy!

*scratches forever*

OW OW OW OW OW YOU ARE BLEEDING WHAT THE HELL!! STOP! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.

Oh my god, body, shut up. Stop itching. Sleep!

maybe you should get that checked out by a doctor cause your foot’s been itchy a lot

It is WINTER. My skin is DRY. WHATEVER. SHUT UP. SLEEP.

2:45: dry skin doesn’t come with little bitty blisters, just sayin’

I do not want a doctor visit. I have had enough of the doctor visits for all time. Shut up.

itchy itchy

3:30AM: cramps! crampy crampy cramps! All down your arm! NO DON’T STRETCH YOUR HAND BACK LIKE THAT the OT said you’ll get claw hands if you overextend your hands like that, make a fist!

But that doesn’t stop the cramping at all and it just hurts more!

oh my god we’re going to have claw hands forever in no time you can’t even open a packet of chips anymore, you have to make a claw hand and tear it with your knuckles i wonder how long we have left of opening cat food cans our cats are gonna starve oh no

Fuck off, brain, it’s fine, they make automatic can openers you know. OK. Hands stopped cramping. *yaaaaawwwn*OWQOWOWOWOWOW WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK WHY DO I GET CRAMPS IN MY SHOULDERS WHEN I YAWN WITH MY HEAD TURNED. WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THAT. OW OW OW OW WHY IS THIS HAPPENING.

I dunno. Fucking ALS, man.

your muscles are dying and it hurts because you’re dying

SLEEP. OH MY GOD.

4AM: hey remember when we didn’t have to lean our head against the bathroom stall to pull our pants up that was pretty weird huh how you could just stand up without even thinking about it

Go to sleep, brain.

no but seriously we can’t even stand up in the braces anymore we have to balance on something that is some fucked up shit i wonder when the chair will happen

4:15AM: we are going to have to get some help cleaning the apartment because that is ridiculous and out of control i mean do we even need to live in a space bigger than this because we can’t even manage this space as it is

FUCKING SLEEP. JUST LET ME SLEEP.

Let’s take some Ambien!

One, that’s a stupid idea because it’s way too late. Two, we don’t have any more.

shit. ok. Well we can fall asleep without it. This bed is comfy, and Parm has stopped dancing around.

I can’t wait for the new bed.

we don’t need a king sized new bed because no one is going to sleep with us ever again

MOTHERFUCKER.

haha you should post about all of that and call it tmi train to traumatown or something

My love life or lack thereof is not something I want to talk about on the blog.

why not people want to know what kind of sex lives dying people have i’m sure

THERE IS NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT.

and that’s the title right there

4:45AM: hey the inside of your leg itches now. scratch it. A lot. HEY OW THAT IS TOO MUCH.

5AM: *Molly decides it’s Time For Love. She does this thing where she reaches out and just puts her paw on my mouth. And then ducks out of the way when I try to pet her. It’s cute as hell but I hate this game*

5:30AM: Hey guys would now be a bad time to have a really nasty headache?

YES.

yes

TOO BAD BECAUSE HERE WE GO!

we’ve been having a lot of these i wonder if it’s a tumor

NO IT IS JUST BECAUSE YOU WON’T SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LET ME SLEEP. SLEEP IS A THING WE SHOULD BE DOING.

6AM: *Parmesan decides to tell me he’s hungry, leaves to potty, and then comes back with more Dance of the Icy Toes on Your Face*

6:45: Well I am awake. And I do not want to be. I wonder if my alarm is going to go off soon. Let’s see…Yep. 5 minutes. FUCK.

*Ianto finds a plastic bag and starts playing with it*

I HATE EVERYTHING.

So much to say oh my gosh

I’m sorry! I’ve been quiet! But for a good reason! I’ve been on a vacation. It was a complicated vacation and I’ll tell you all about it. I’ve got a couple other half-written entries in the backlog, too, and I need to get to those as well. And there’s the weekly video I haven’t done in 2 months.

Tomorrow is Clinic, which I had COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN ABOUT. oooops. I will tell you about all of these things, how that goes, how I creeped out a lot of kids in a theme park, how I took another step along the ALS life route and how I feel about that, all of it. And how I almost got into a fight. For now, though, I’ve been back from vacation since Thursday and I’ve been sleeping 12 hours a day to recover. Totally not kidding.

But hey, I’m alive still, and life is pretty good until I have to go back to work, and I’ve missed you and you look amazing, have you been working out?