Seriously, why always 3AM?

I’m awake. Why the hell am I awake?
omigod so thirsty
Was dinner that salty, Body?
driiiiink sooooomethiiiiiing
I’m comfortable though, and the only thing I have in here is diet soda which has like, ALL the sodium in it. I’d have to get out of bed and get dressed to get a drink, and that’s not going to be easy to get a glass from the cabinet or anything.
HEY HEY HEY GUESS WHAT
Oh god. Yes, Brain, what.
SOON YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO DO IT AT ALL EVEN IF YOU HAVE WATER RIGHT IN YOUR FRIDGE YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO GET IT WITHOUT HELP.
Really? This is what we’re doing now?
yo i am still thirsty can you maybe angst later ok
I just want to go back to sleep. Can you just deal with being thirsty, body? It’s not like having to pee. We can wait. OK?
i am a parched desert but ok go off i guess
Just gonna lay here and pet my cats and sleep. OK?
DO YOU THINK WHEN WE DIE THE CATS WILL HANG OUT WITH US ONE LAST TIME OR DO YOU THINK THERE WILL BE OTHER PEOPLE IN THE ROOM AND THE CATS WILL RUN AWAY?
MotherFUCKER.
HEY DID YOU SEE THAT VIDEO OF THE CAT REACTING TO ITS DEAD OWNER’S VOICE? IT WAS ON FACEBOOK A LOT TODAY.
No, I did NOT because I knew it would make me cry a lot.
I BET IT WAS REALLY SAD, THOUGH.
I imagine so.
DO YOU THINK YOUR CATS WILL MISS YOU WHEN YOU ARE DEAD?
hey brain like shut up don’t make us cry
Seriously!
crying is really dehydrating
…Seriously??
loss of fluid is really important to me right now ok driiiiiiink soooooomethiiiiing
OK FINE, holy shit, I’m gonna get up and get a cup of water.
ok cool but now that we’re standing up, remember how I said we didn’t need to pee?
….Yes?
i lied and we are gonna
Don’t you DARE.
right now
NO.
we’re doing it
LET ME GET TO THE BATHROO….oh, GODDAMMIT.
YOU KNOW SOMEDAY SOON WE AREN’T GONNA BE ABLE TO CLEAN THAT UP ON OUR OWN AND WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO MAKE SOMEONE ELSE DO IT.
…Fuck you both.
ACTUALLY WE WON’T EVEN MAKE IT TO STAND UP WE ARE JUST GONNA PEE ALLLLLLLL OVER THE BED AND THEN LIE IN IT.
maybe when they come clean up the pee they can bring some water cause we’re still thirsty
I hate you both so much right now.

Biding Time

I have about 9 weeks of work left (7 weeks of actual work and then 2 weeks vacation). Until that time is over, I can’t exactly be as candid about work as I’d like in certain situations, and be public and honest about all the reasons I’m very, very, very glad to be leaving. Dumbass CEOs firing 10% of the global workforce to please the shareholders, lecturing his employees about business ethics and integrity after getting busted doing insider trading, and THEN getting caught having an affair with an underling aside. (Bye, Felicia)

I can tell you, though, that I’m really, really glad to be leaving my particular job. I’ll miss the idea of work, the regularity, the sense of being needed, and a lot of the coworkers that I’m leaving behind, but I’m very glad that an end is in sight to my working career. Frankly, the job’s become kind of a piece of shit lately and the universe is telling me it’s time to be gone.

Perfect case in point, my manager asked what I would like to do as a goodbye celebration. I told him I wasn’t sure I even wanted to HAVE one, since I’m not exactly leaving for very happy reasons, and I really don’t want to be around a bunch of people crying or looking at me with pity for a couple hours, or talking about literally anything else. Not my idea of a good time. I kind of just… want to sneak out the back. Coworkers that I had personal attachments to had their chance last year to say goodbye at my wake. He said that was fine, but I should know there were lots of people who wanted a chance to say goodbye after almost ten years of working with me, and if I did not want to a going away thing, then that was my choice, but I needed to let him know so that he could inform me coworkers in Arizona that if they want to say goodbye they would have to make their own arrangements.

I flat out told him that was emotional blackmail. But I conceded that a going away thing wasn’t about me at all and I would think about it. He told me to pick a time and a place and let him know when I’d made arrangements.

…The FUCK I am going to plan my own going away party.

It’s already shitty that for almost the last 10 years, I’ve been performing the team’s emotional labor on my own (practically. James was really good at picking up some of it and made a point of not treating me like a fucking admin, while he was on our team). I am not going to plan, organize, and make reservations for a party – for MYSELF – that I don’t even want. I’ve been sending flowers for every, birth, wedding, and death in my team. I got nothing when my father died. …because I wasn’t there to send *myself* flowers.

It’s definitely time to go. If I weren’t leaving the team, the company, the workforce as a whole, I’d sure as shit be leaving this particular team anyway. Probably the company. We ceased giving a shit about each other a long time ago. That really sucks, because I miss the team we used to be. The team that hung out after work together for Beer Tuesdays and invited me even though I think beer is gross. The team that genuinely gave a shit about each other and had fun even when the work itself sucked so much ass. I miss that camaraderie.

The old team sure as fuck would not have told me to throw my own goddamned retirement party.

Bruising for a Cruising

Okay, I have to tell you about this stupid thing that happened, because then I can focus on the good parts, and also tell you something good that came of it all.

TL;DR: ALS RUINS EVERYTHING EXCEPT MAYBE DRAMATIC ENTRANCES.

So, I went on a cruise. I’d arbitrarily decided I wanted to do that, last year, as a bucket list thing. Cruises seemed cool, and at the time I was envisioning myself spending a week on the ocean, cruising to Alaska, taking the time to mentally collect myself and write all of my goodbye letters and look at the water. My friend Beth has been trying to get me to go on this one geeky cruise, but it was in Mexico and I’m not a tropical person. At all. And then, well, my hands stopped working so well, so it was less important that I have all the alone time, and then the geek cruise announced that Zoe Keating was going to be one of the performers and suddenly I am going on that fucking cruise, you’d better believe it.

It’s this one: https://jococruise.com/

One week of music and comedy and geekery. Puce, Lance, and Tam came with me, and we were gonna have a hell of a time and I was going to work up the nerve to say hello and thank you to Zoe Keating, and I was going to look at the water for hours and maybe have a cocktail and perhaps see a whale. And I did all those things and so so so many more. It was incredible.

…Except for this one thing.

From the start, I had concerns about accessibility. I can’t do without the walker, these days. I use a cane to get from the car to the grocery store where I can use a cart to lean on, or I’m using my walker. I wasn’t terribly concerned about the ship itself, though, I mean, these things are practically built for old people, right? I had a quick look at the cabin floor plan and realized with one week to go until the cruise that the bathroom was not even a little bit accessible. I sent a very apologetic and frantic email to the amazing planner people, who totally came through and switched me to an accessible cabin with grab bars and everything and it was all saved and glorious! (HOORAY FOR THO) ..Except for the shore excursions, I was still wary of them. Now, I realize fully well that the A in ADA is for Americans, and the rest of the world is not exactly accessible, which is why I’ve become reluctant to do a lot of traveling. But I completely intended to make do, so long as they could get me to shore, which they promised they could. And I tentatively believed them and didn’t worry about it at all until the day before the first one.

We were going to stop for the most of a day in Cabo. Unfortunately, there was a thing on the ship I wanted to do, right in the middle of the day, so we stopped by the front desk to ask how the disembarking would go down, to see if the hassle was going to be worth it for just a couple of hours. The town was too small to dock in, so they were offloading people by tender, which is a small boat, the woman with a delightful German accent explained. There wasn’t a rail, and there was a small gap between the ship and the tender that would wobble with the waves. Due to liability issues, they could not carry me in, but there were people on both sides to give me a hand. She assured me it would probably be fine. I had my doubts.

We skipped Cabo, and the event I wanted to go to was postponed til Friday, so I wound up spending the whole day on the ship, drinking fake mojitos and staring at the water and having a nap. SO HORRIBLE, YOU GUYS, SUCH MISERY WOW. CRUISES ARE THE WORST. The next day was Loreto, though, and not only a local food festival but an all night concert (Ted Leo will indeed rock your face off, so there was no way I was missing that). I vowed to get my ass ashore and do some sightseeing come Hell or high water – and yes the irony of that is not at all lost on me. The morning came, and so did my apprehension. Again, too small to dock so we were using tenders to get ashore. Lance went to the launch site to see how hard it would be to get me on the boat, and he assured me that it was a little gap, the water was calm, easy-peasy. They’d be there the whole time to help, and I knew they absolutely would. It wound up truly not being that difficult, even though I can’t step up a curb anymore, just a little gap and a lot of helping hands. HOORAY FOR THAT.

The ride to the port was nausea inducing, and the dock we wound up in was basically a narrow-ass pier maybe five feet wide, and then a steep as shit ramp to get up to the port. We had to step down from the tender using two wooden boxes made into stairs and yeah, you THINK you already know where this is going, but NO. I made it down the steps just fine with a lot of help from the crew and my friends, and walked across the narrow pier with no problems, and up the steep ramp without falling. You doubters. We made it to the city and looked around; it took forever for me because hey! No proper sidewalks and steep hills and cobblestone streets! Lance and Tam split off from Puce and I to do some shopping, while we looked at an ancient mission church and its museum of artifacts.

And then shit went sideways…literally. Without going into detail, I fell out of the walker and skinned the bejeesus out of my knees. As usual, the worst part was the strangers. It was right in the middle of the road, in front of a restaurant, so everybody and their mother pretended not to be watching but still managed to stare as we tried to get me up. A well meaning couple helped Puce out, and then overstayed their thanks by over-analyzing why I fell and how to prevent it from ever happening again while Puce and I both repeated YES THANK YOU and tried to move the fuck on with our lives. We limped to an ice cream shop, where I ate delicious ice cream from my childhood while trying to forget that it happened. Remarkably, my tights weren’t ruined, it turned out. Hooray! The day was not completely obliterated, but we agreed it should probably be a short day.

We did the food festival, delicious! and then stayed for the first act when the concert started. We decided to head back to the ship while there was still light to see. I was pretty wiped out by this point, but luckily there were taxis provided by the cruise organizers to get me back to the pier. And….again, I know what ADA stands for, but the van that showed up had a wheelchair symbol on it and yet was the most un-accessible van ever. He helpfully provided a little stepstool for me to get up into the seat with…which was a complete waste of effort because I don’t have the strength to lift my foot up that high to get ON the stool, much less step up with it into the the van. I managed, but it was not pretty and my tights were falling off by the time I was onboard. I discreetly hitched them back up when we got to the dock, I walked so, so carefully down that steep-ass ramp, navigated the narrow pier to the boat…

..and swore a lot because I’d completely forgotten about the fucking steps up to the boat.

Now, I can do a couple of steps if there is a sold handrail, because it’s basically using my arms to haul myself up. Without a hand rail, though, it’s fucking impossible. I quailed, but Puce assured me we would get this done. The diminutive crew took my walker on board, and then I slung my arm over Puce’s shoulder to try the steps. It failed instantly, and completely. I couldn’t help him get me up at all; I couldn’t lift my foot even, on to the first step. The crew tried to help, but they were small Asiatic men trying to assist a fat American giantess, and they were completely ineffective beside grabbing me under my arms and trying to put my feet on the stairs as though the only problem was getting my foot to touch the step. I asked to be allowed to sit for a moment, to catch my breath and rethink the problem. It took them all too much time to understand, this isn’t working, let me go.

I looked around, trying to think of a plan, and not allow myself to become a quivering, humiliated mass of tears. I noticed a line of people behind us and tried not to look at their faces. I noticed a cute girl with pink hair watching, similarly trying to think how to help. And then I noticed Anne Wheaton, one of the cruise’s celebrity guests. You probably would know her best as Wil Wheaton(the kid from Star Trek)’s wife, but she’s a geek in her own right and a fellow believer in the amazing power of googly eyes (for real though, google VandalEyes; the woman is one of my heroes) and was on the cruise doing a reading from her upcoming book. And she was watching me struggle with these ghetto-ass stairs on this unstable-ass boat and these little dudes hurting me while trying to help and I really, truly, just wanted to slip into the water and never come up. But that wasn’t an option.

I had just decided that the easiest thing would be to haul myself on to the boat and crawl over to the bench on my skinned knees like a fucking animal because surely my dignity could only suffer more if I managed to piss myself as well. That’s when the pink haired woman stood up and offered to help, assuring me that she was quite strong. I waved her off once, announcing that it was probably easier if I just crawled, but she repeated her claim of strength and voluntold another man to help her and Puce pick me up. I accepted with as much grace as I could pretend to have. Carrying 230 pounds of dead weight up what are effectively rickety fruit crates and on to a narrow moving boat is not an easy task. I think 8 people at one time were helping me, swiveling me successfully into a bench, and I tried to crawl inside my own skin as everyone else filed on board. Puce was amazingly supportive as always, and silently offered support while we rode back to the ship as I silently prayed for everyone to please forget this whole thing, and did my best to not completely lose my shit until I was alone. The pink haired cutie stayed behind to make sure I was able to get off the tender okay, and of course I could as there were no stairs involved. I thanked her a dozen times, we got back to our cabin, and I cried a lot.

I spent the rest of the cruise fervently pretending that the whole thing hadn’t happened. I had bruises under both my arms, my ego was shattered, but goddammit I had a good time for the rest of the trip pretending I hadn’t made a complete spectacle of myself in front of a boat full of strangers and Anne Wheaton. I mentally chalked it up as a lame-ass claim to fame and joked internally that she’d probably never forget the trip, for damn sure. And managed to forget it, mostly, specially when I got home. I knew I’d probably blog about it, but hopefully in a not-depressing way and try to find some positive angle on the whole ordeal, cause that’s how I fucking roll.

I’m off work for sabbatical now, so I slept late Monday. When I woke up, Puce asked me if I’d been on Facebook yet. That’s…never a good sign. I told him no, mentally wondering who died. He said I should check, and I got nervous and asked what was up. He asked if I wanted to find out myself, or should he tell me, and I didn’t feel like sorting through a time bomb of a timeline, and maybe Facebook’s stupid algorithms wouldn’t even decide to show me what he was talking about at all, anyway. I told him to tell me.

“So…………Will Wheaton’s wife posted to the JoCo Sea Monkey 2017 group about your…incident. It’s very nice, and sweet, and depressing…but she still posted about it, basically to give you support.”

FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCK.

“Then Beth went and tagged you in comments.”

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

OK. Breathe. It’s cool. No big deal. It’s cool. Public humiliation part two. OH MY GOD THIS IS NEVER GOING TO GO AWAY IS IT. I braced myself for the worst and checked the group. And the post was obvious.

“To the young Sea Monkey who was using a walker on the cruise-”

Wincing, I read her account of the incident, mortified that my emotions were so transparent and I was completely casting a shadow on what should have been an awesome night. I hate that my disease is depressing as hell to everyone around me. I try to keep my shit in check for this reason alone. “What I wanted to do was get up and come over to you to tell you not to feel stupid for your body failing you, but it’s not my place to tell you how to feel,” she wrote.

..Holy fuck, this woman gets it, I thought in surprise. Being told not to feel dumb or weak or sad is never helpful. It makes me angry, if anything. And she understood, and elected not to intrude on my struggle like some Feel Good Fairy Godmother with useless words of non-comfort. I wanted to hug her for that. She continued to tell me that she noticed that not one person behind us waiting to get on the boat was irritated or impatient, just standing by not knowing how to help. And..I was relieved. And instantly didn’t mind at all that she posted this story semi-publicly. Was grateful, even. Because of course my brain told me that everyone was watching, feeling sorry or being mad that I was Officially Ruining Everything. She understood how I felt enough to make a point to tell me this. Which was amazing. She gracefully relieved me of any obligation to respond or identify myself, and concluded:

“Just remember, you are not your body. You are an incredible human being facing a really shitty situation who chose to go on a cruise and live life to the fullest. You are an example of perseverance we should all be so lucky to witness.”

I’m…not entirely sure that’s so, of course. I’m just some dumb girl with a fucking ridiculous disease that ruins everything. I didn’t really decide to go despite my disease. Zoe was gonna be there and thus, so was I. The end. But Anne’s words were amazing and timely as shit and I felt immediately better about the whole thing, and I replied with a simple thanks on the post but sent her a more detailed reply in a Facebook message, including a request to pass my thanks to her pink-haired rescue goddess friend who was indeed super strong. She told me why it hit her so hard, and hoped I’d be back next year. I told her I’d like that, but maybe I’d skip the port of call next time (heh), and asked if I could use her words when I inevitably posted about this whole thing. She said okay and she’d be sure to pass on my regards.

And now I have. So, a super shitty thing happened, but as usual, there was a moment of grace in it that gives the incident some worth. I’m only sorry I didn’t get to hear this from her in person so I could hug her. And then show her the googly eyes on my JoCo badge.

Death Cafe

I have always been a spooky kid. From a young age, I have been fascinated by the aesthetic of death, the graves and skeletons and ghosts, and later Victorian memorial photography and mourning jewelry. I was peripherally aware of death, of course, my whole life. We all are. It wasn’t until Jack Kevorkian came into the American consciousness that I learned that I had Definite Opinions about capital D DEATH as an absolute, as well as an aesthetic. I found that I strongly believe we all ought to have control over our own mortality, and had my first real experience with how afraid society is to discuss the subject at all. Later, when going through the Diagnosis Cha Cha, I experienced my first profound frustration with peoples’ willingness – and even their ABILITY – to discuss it at all.

Today I attended my first Death Cafe.

You can learn about them here: http://deathcafe.com/ It’s essentially a safe space to talk freely and openly about death, and it’s meant to be a really positive experience. I first found out about them through the Order of the Good Death; I’ve fangirled about Caitlyn Doughty and her Ask a Mortician video series before. I finally worked up the nerve to sign up and attend one; my hesitation was not at all about the subject matter, but about, you know…that whole show up and talk to total strangers. This is what I do here, of course, but in a more one-sided capacity. It was a space to get to know other death-curious people, exchange ideas, and finally -FINALLY – be allowed to talk freely about this whole ‘death’ thing.

We had a wonderful facilitator at the table, who was warm, inclusive, and knowledgeable. There was a young woman who had older parents and didn’t know how to talk to them about death, a wonderful older woman who had the same frustrations with being unable to talk to her loved ones about death, and an artist who works with the dying to design their own crematory urns.

FUCKING AWESOME, RIGHT!?!

…Damn right I got her contact info.

We all spoke for about two hours, about everything from death acceptance to memorial services and keepsakes to death-positive media. I learned about POST/POLST forms (a beefed up Advance Directive that is hot pink and you put it on your fridge so the ambulance folk know what you want). I got a very warm and supportive hug. I taught a delightfully sweary old woman the phrase “lalochezia”. I learned about support groups that aren’t support groups at all for the recently bereaved. We talked about how America doesn’t really have its own death rituals as a culture, and so when it comes to death, we are all at a loss as to what to do. I mean, wen someone dies, you show up with a casserole, but then what? We don’t have societal rules and custom for how to treat the dead, besides paying total strangers to come deal with it and sweep the whole thing under a clinical rug. We’ve become divorced from Death, and it is a damn shame.

I will definitely be attending more of these. It was a pleasant afternoon of drinking tea, eating cookies, and having a chat about things you don’t normally get to talk freely about. I highly recommend you seek one out in your neighborhood. The more we talk about this, the more normal it becomes, and the more healthy our attitude towards death as a culture becomes. And this is a good thing. It helps the dying to not feel so alienated. It helps the grieving to not feel so alone. It helps us all to know what to do, how to have these conversations while we still can.

Knowledge is power, indeed, and by talking about death, we destroy some of its mystique and its terror. We make it normal, and we help each other through impending loss – be it even our own departure. I want to be able to have these conversations with my loved ones, but until that becomes normal and okay, I can have these conversations with strangers.

It’s almost as good.

Bathroom Stall Barre Class

Part of New Normal is developing new rituals and processes for stuff you never even thought about. You just do it, you don’t think about it, until you can’t do it, and then one day you’re sitting there and realize how strange it is, to have to do what you do now to do the thing you did without even thinking before. You can’t remember creating that ritual and routine, it just organically developed when you lost the ability to do it the ‘normal’ way. One day you realize you’re sort of dancing in place to remain upright because you’ve lost the ability to stand still without losing your balance. One day you realize you’re gripping the fork like a savage because your hands cramp if you hold it like a human.

One day I realized I use my head as a fifth limb.

…Like, all the time.

How? What? Well you know how when you’re done in the bathroom, you just kinda clean up, and move on? Pants up, flush, wash hands, leave? Well let me walk you through the steps, my friends, the Dance of the Public Restroom that I now realize I do.

Step 1) Do the thing like you do, clean up, like normal.

Step 2) Do they have bars? I hope there’s bars. There are. Grip those bad boys and haul yourself to your feet. Bonus point for restrooms NOT designed by imbeciles, like the one downstairs at work where they put the toilet paper dispenser RIGHT where your elbow hits if you use the bar to pull yourself up, hitting your funnybone if you’re lucky and hitting your funnybone AND scraping skin off your elbow with the sharp little cutty edge for ripping the paper off the roll if you’re unlucky. Bonus BONUS points if they did not put the ‘feminine product’ bin EXACTLY where your knee hits it when you try to stand.

Step 3) Don’t fall over.

Step 4) I’m serious, don’t fall over.

Step 5) Using the bar with one hand, swivel your body to face the wall, flush the toilet.

Step 6) Press your head against the wall so you can have that point of balance while both hands reach down to pull up your underwear.

Step 7) Don’t get your panties caught on the cuff of your braces.

Step 8) Grab the bar with your right hand, and lean to the left to extract your panties from being caught on the cuff of your braces.

Step 9) Resume head-to-wall balance and pull panties on properly.

Step 10) Sigh heavily, get your breath back, cause we’re going back in. Head to wall a little lower, scootch your feet back a little so you can reach down further without falling over, and grab the waist of your pants with both hands.

Step 11) Don’t get those caught on your braces either.

Step 12) Did you seriously step on the cuff of your pants when you stepped backwards in Step 10? Really?

Step 13) Hold on to the bar with one hand and try to babystep off of the cuff of your jeans without falling over. Good job.

Step 14) Pull pants up with both hands.

Step 15) With your head against the wall still, do a little turn, so that your back is now against the wall, and hope that leaning against the wall didn’t pop the door open. Try to forget how many times that’s happened to you.

Step 16) Button your pants.

Step 17) It’s okay, sometimes it takes more than one try, button your pants.

Step 18) Seriously relax, deep breath, try one more time. There.

Step 19) Zip up. Don’t fall over.

Step 20) Grab your cane, unlock the stall, and go wash your hands.

Step 21) (OPTIONAL) Lean against the bathroom sink for balance while washing your hands and get water all over yourself at around crotch level because some jerk got water all over the counter and didn’t wipe it up. Seriously this is a sink, not a birdbath, how did they even splash so much?

That’s it! You’re done! Now use hand sanitizer on your cane handle cause you touched that with your dirty bathroom hands. Gross.

Too private.

“I tend to be pretty private,” she told me, as we talked of grief.

“I keep that close to my chest, usually, too,” I agreed.

“But you’re pretty open, usually? You have that blog.”

“I post a lot of things people would consider private and personal, sure. But when I get really sad about my own situation, I tend to shut up and not post for awhile.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So I haven’t posted for awhile. Not that things haven’t been happening. Things being thought, that I ought to write down. Feelings to document, frustrations to record. Things. But it’s hard to write, when you feel bad. There’s a bullshit self-imposed rule of “if you can’t say anything nice”, when the whole POINT of this was to record the good and bad. The funny among the fucked up, the grace between the grief, the other alliterative things that mean shit happens and sometimes it sucks and it’s all valid and okay.

There’s been a vast lack of energy, both physical and spiritual, lately. I spent the entire weekend in bed. Sleeping or playing video games. Safe to say I’m in a depressive streak, and things are hard right now, but good stuff still happens. I have a lot in my brain. Work is stressful as shit, and that’s its own post, one of many that I feel I owe you, this place, this blog, my future self. One of many. It’s harder to type and that makes me not want to do it. I am tired. I am lazy. I would rather be escaping into virtual realms, the Commonwealth, the biome I call my Minecraft home, Discworld, anywhere but here. I am squandering the time I have left and the ability I have to do things with it, and I can’t bring myself to care, most days.

But I have things to tell you. And I shall. I’m sorry to myself, and to whatever audience here, and to the universe in general for not being a diligent reporter, for not allowing myself permission to post even the bad days, when the bad days aren’t funny. It’s just easier to sleep, instead.

I have things to tell you. And I shall.

I’d name this post some kind of marijuana pun but I hate them.

Okay, peeps. Real talk. First? Any employer who may or may not be reading this should regard this post as a work of fiction or satire or something. I have never smoked pot*. I hate the smell of it, it causes migraines**. These are theoreticals and opinions and satire. As far as I care to say.

I know I’ve mentioned marijuana before, but I can’t seem to find it to link to, so I’m just going to pretend I’ve never said anything and start from the beginning. So here’s the beginning:

I have hated pot ever since I was a wee thing. (seriously, as a kid I once cried so hard I threw up and was angry at my mother for WEEKS because she smoked a joint with our neighbor) The smell of it is one of the small handful of things that will nearly ALWAYS trigger a migraine, which doesn’t help at all, but I mostly have always had an intense dislike for it because of the people I know who smoke. Who…’partake’. And they’ve ruined that word for me. I hate that the people most upfront about habitually using it are usually complete idiots. That stoner laugh, the drawn out “….whut?” Most of the people I knew while growing up who smoked pot were complete idiots, and it was not until much later in life that I learned the difference between “person who smokes pot” and “pothead”. My sole experience with the drug was a second hand high I got at a Depeche Mode concert, and that may VERY well have been endorphin and adrenaline that come naturally with a rock concert. I came home hyper and hungry. I came to know some people who could keep their act together but still smoked, but I always thought a little less of them, if I’m being perfectly honest. OK sure you can hold down a job, but how much more could you accomplish if you DIDN’T light up every night when you got home?

I’m saying, I have some prejudices.

How could I not, really? My direct experience has always been pot = migraine. Stoners = idiots.*** Oh sure, people swore up and down that pot cured cancer and AIDS and ADD and whatever other letters you wanted to throw at it. You can make hemp everything! The hemp people always struck me as trying to find a loophole to legitimize their habits, NO SERIOUSLY IT’S NOT FOR GETTING HIGH MAN IT’S FOR PAPER AND CLOTHES AND SHIT and okay also getting high because you don’t see us making the same arguments for using bamboo which ALSO does all these things plus FOOD, and collecting signatures for THAT, but hey, whatever man. I could never take any of it seriously because all information about the medicinal benefits were nothing more than anecdotal. ..Because hey, it’s pretty hard to do a legit medical study on an illegal substance, turns out.

…Okay side rant, people, because I HONESTLY, SERIOUSLY believe that a major reason why no one ever took marijuana seriously as medicine? IS BECAUSE YOU NAME YOUR STRAINS DUMB ASS THINGS LIKE CAT PISS AND PEPDAWG AND ALASKAN THUNDERFUCK. There was no medical journal out there willing to take seriously a chemical composition and therapeutic benefit breakdown comparison between Purple Urkel and Ninja Turtle. If you want to be seen as a legitimate, scientific cure, KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON NAMES. No doctor is going to prescribe “2 tablets of Purple Monkey Balls”. There is probably a way to scientifically, accurately track the medicinal benefits of each strain, but you stoners made it REALLY REALLY HARD for us to see it as science with names like Romulan Cotton Candy and Skyhigh. OKAY? Ok. Also, I only made up ONE of those names****.

Anyway.

I’ve a lifelong dislike for pot, is what I’m saying. It was recently legalized for recreational use here in Oregon, and I actually think that’s marvelous for a lot of reasons. I strongly feel, that no matter what my own opinion on smoking pot might be, anyone should have a chance to use a medicine if they thought it might help. There’s been awesome articles about the benefits people have found through its use; epileptic little girls finding seizure relief, and cancer patients using it for pain management, and ADHD people using it for focus, and PTSD victims using it to quell anxiety attacks, and I think that’s awesome. I am ALL ABOUT letting people do what they feel is doing them some good, so long as it hurts no one else. People have been telling me for years and years that pot would help with my headaches, and while I declined to take up their advice, I encouraged others to do so if they thought it helped. Just don’t smoke it around me, please. I agree that it’s practically harmless, it fixes a lot of things either for real or through the placebo effect, legalizing it recovers a lot of police time pursuing people who are not actually a threat, and brings in some tax money. I don’t believe it’s truly harmless, because while doing nothing but smoking pot may not be dangerous to your health overall, it’s harmful like overindulging in ANY addictive pastime, like video games. You’re not hurting anyone, but how long has it been since you checked in on your friends? They miss you. And you are REALLY BORING to people who don’t do #hobby because that’s all you ever talk about, be it pot or Fallout 4. But I freely admit I’d MUCH rather be on the road with someone driving stoned than drunk. You don’t get stoned and go on a bender that ends with seven dead. You don’t clonk a granny over the head and steal her purse to get money for a joint, no matter what Reefer Madness told you. You don’t get stoned out of your mind and then call your ex sobbing that you two should get back together, because, like..the phone is way over there, and you’d have to get up to get it, and then press all those buttons.

So I was honestly kind of irritated when I read a lot of studies about medical marijuana doing great things for people with ALS.

I asked Dr. Goslin about it, if it would help with anxiety and the twitches and the cramping and everything, and she said, yes, it probably would, would I like a medical marijuana card? I told her I’d go do my own research and pursue it if I felt it would do me good. I did a LOT of research. I talked to a few people who used it, and tried to open my mind to the idea. While I fail to see how something known to trigger migraines could possibly help my headaches, I was at least passingly interested in the possibilities. A year passed, the data I found was inconclusive, so I let it lie.

Then I had a Really Bad Stretch. So bad I can’t even tell you about all of it; but my heart was broken by a lot of awful events conspiring to happen at once, so much drama and heartache and confusion and I really, really just wanted it to go away and let me think straight. I was back in the same dark headspace I used to get in when I self harmed; not a desire to die or disappear, just desperately needing an outlet and a calm space to sort things out. Some time to think without panicking. A friend strongly advocated for marijuana as a stress relief, and gave me strong enough testimonials that I caved and applied for the card. Because I strongly feel, that no matter what my own opinion on smoking pot might be, anyone should have a chance to use a medicine if they thought it might help.

Including me.

The card took FOREVER to get to me and cost $200. An initiative passed to legalize recreational pot here in Oregon, and it was actually in place and active only a week or so after I finally got the thing. It’s still necessary, though, because ‘recreational’ only includes the flower and seeds. No oils, tinctures, edibles, or anything, and like I said, the smell gives me migraines so I’m not smoking it ever. But I was interested in the alternatives and dipped my toe in. The first thing I bought were chocolates, I bought them from a legal dispensary in Washington that was INCREDIBLY crowded so I didn’t get a lot of time to ask the questions I had. A lot of questions. Dosage, strains, methods, I mean I knew that different strains did different things and that ‘medibles’ (seriously, stoners. “medical edibles LOL U GUIZE SO CLEVAR”) reacted differently in your body than smoking, but I needed details. I didn’t get them that day, just bought the very expensive white chocolates, and slunk away.

I made sure I had a babysitter when I tried a chocolate with 10mg in it. It tasted bad and did nothing, which wasn’t terribly surprising since I was later told that 10mg of THC is NOTHING. Another day, I tried a vaporizer with a friend who smokes but had never used a vaporizer before, and it did nothing for either of us. I tried two chocolates, another day. Felt nothing but calm, but I’d also slept all day and then soaked forever in a hot bath with a Lush bath bomb so I was pretty freakin’ relaxed already. I saved the last two and tried them another time, when work had sent me into a rage, so I knew it would be a good test. I felt nothing but calm, which could have been the chocolates, but could have also just been the time that passed once I was home from work. I was still angry as hell, but just not as energetic about it – which tends to happen with the passage of time on its own. I dwell, but I don’t tend to stew when I’m angry. So that wasn’t a particularly good test, either.

The same friend that originally testified so strongly (later jokingly called my Pusher) brought me a small assortment of ‘medibles’ (ffs) to try. These gummy robots, hard candies, a pink lemonade, and some CBD caps. CBD is the more medically useful compound in pot. I don’t want to get high, just want the medical benefits, so low THC and high CBD is what I was after. The gummy robots were super cute and there was a little diagram on the back showing which part of the robot had what kind of dosage. I tried a small piece of one of the gummy robots (his head) one night and…yeah, I got high, I guess. I was decidedly altered. I wasn’t giggly or paranoid or anything, but aware that my perceptions were altered. I opened a wordpad document and started typing something in it but stopped bothering after awhile, but the gist of it was basically “now I know why stoners talk like they do, because there’s literally no way to describe these sensations without sounding like you’re on drugs.” Even later, sober, while trying to explain the sensation to a friend, it was TOTALLY STONER SPEAK. “There was something like a core of energy in my gut, and it pulsed out in waves, and I could feel the tingling of the waves as they radiated out and off of my body like electricity.” (Um. Yeah. Shut up, stoner.) I was cognizant enough to know that social contact would probably be a bad idea, especially writing the emails I was working on to introduce myself to clinical trial coordinators, so I banned myself from social media and instead just watched television for the rest of the night, knowing that it was NOT in 3D even though it sort of looked like it. “This is probably WAY more surreal right now than the actual show is. I’ll have to rewatch this tomorrow and compare.” (it was still weird, for the record, but not nearly as bizarre as I remembered, predictably.) My body was tingly and heavy and I did not enjoy the feeling. I had to walk to the kitchen to get something and had to concentrate really hard on not falling, which might be fun for some people, but I already have real life troubles with such things so I did not need a chemical to enhance that. I wound up sort of falling at one point, very gently, and it was really hard to get back up; and even chemically altered, I had the presence of mind to realize that this would be really, horribly upsetting if I let it be, and turn into a Terrible Time, so I concentrated really hard on not thinking about it at all and just pet the cats until I felt like I could stand up again. I went straight to bed and was glad to wake up and have it gone.

I tried a hard candy, another night, and it didn’t feel like it did anything except test my powers of endurance by forcing myself to suck on an awful hard candy for 20 minutes. I tried the other part of the robot another, different night, and got REALLY altered, and my twitches got so much worse it was like having a seizure. I found I could calm the jerking by thinking about it, practically mentally commanding myself to do so, but then they’d start right back up and there wasn’t anything for it but to sleep it off. Except I couldn’t sleep because I was spasming so hard I was kicking the cats off of me and reenacting the part of Ash from the Evil Dead. GIVE ME BACK MY HAAAAAAND. It wasn’t painful at all, just completely surreal to watch my limbs thrashing about of their own accord, and a little scary. I wound up taking a video of my hand twitching, mostly to see if that was really what was happening or I was maybe just imagining things. Turns out I wasn’t. I can’t move my hand that fast if I wanted to, anymore. Maybe not even before they started losing their strength; it was seriously bizarre. But, I had another bad day and another piece of robot, so I tried it one more time and got REALLY altered and REALLY REALLY sick. I wound up in bed, in the dark, trying to be quiet and calm. I wasn’t freaking out or anything at all, I was just seriously overstimulated, and every sharp noise was a weird synaesthetic flash of light in my brain, and eventually I just barfed it all up and felt a lot better and went to sleep.

So, fuck those little robots.

Also? Fuck the taste of pot. SO GROSS. There is no way to make anything with pot in it that doesn’t taste like pot, and pot tastes AWFUL. Bleah. The pink lemonade tastes like acid and death and pot. The hard candies taste like artificial raspberry and sweet and pot and death. -15/10 DID NOT ENJOY. WILL NEVER ENJOY. Shelf that with beer and wine as Things I Do Not Like and Don’t Understand Why People Do This To Themselves On Purpose.

Bad days continued, and while I was pretty sure I hated pot forever still, I hadn’t tried any concentrates and had no idea what strains I’d actually tried so far. I knew there were LOTS of options. I finally went to a recommended dispensary with a name that was ..tolerable.

…Okay side rant number two. Dispensaries: STOP WITH THE PUN NAMES. “CannaBliss”. “Grin Reefer.” “ReLeaf”. “Urban Farmacy”. OK YES WE GET IT YOU SELL POT. IT IS LEGAL. You’re NOT CLEVER. You are making it HARDER TO TAKE THIS SHIT SERIOUSLY. I feel dumber just walking in. Again, like with the strain names, if you want to be taken seriously as medicine, maybe calling your dispensary “Fifty Shades of Green” is not the road to credibility. It drives me NUTS because only stoners think this is funny – HURR HURR “420 Collective” IS REALLY CLEVER GUISE. Only SLIGHTLY less irritating are the ones that take some aspect of pot, open a thesaurus and choose a name. “Above”. “Ascend.” “Elevated”. “Lift”. GET IT CAUSE IT’S ANOTHER WORD FOR HIGH. LIKE HOW YOU GET HIGH WHEN YOU SMOKE POT. (I can’t stand it when beauty salons do it either, for the record. “Curl up and Dye” was funny the first time I saw it, but how many “A Cut Above”s do we need, or “Hairway to Heaven”. GET OUT.) Fine, name your store something that clues people in to the nature of your business. “Holistic Remedies”. “Green Gardens”. So far “Flora” and “Bloom” are the ones I’ve found the least irritating. But really, as long as you put “Dispensary” in there, people will get it. You don’t see proper doctor clinics with names like “A Cut Above Surgery” or “Meds4U”. There is a reason for this. You are the reason no one is taking marijuana seriously as medicine. Stop it.

okay.

So I got to this recommended place, was soothed by the totally actually clinical interior, like a doctor’s waiting room, and approached the reception counter. I explained what I was after and why. Something for anxiety, maybe, but primarily an anti-seizure/relaxant, I wasn’t looking to get high. He was extremely knowledgeable, and suggested several particular strains. I told him what I’d tried, and what they did, and that I couldn’t smoke and why. He said it was no problem, they have several vaporizers possible, but the higher heat, the better the effect, but the more smell. He explained how oils work and what the naming convention was for some of the things. The oils come in a syringe, “Which sounds scary,” he told me, “but the oils are so sticky it’s really the best delivery method.”

And the whole time he’s talking and writing things down for me on this post-it note, I’m thinking, “Great! Are you gonna maybe SELL me anything?”

I told him about my experiences with medibles (guhhhhhhh), explained I wasn’t looking to get high but I wasn’t adverse to feeling some effects if the thing did good. He used the word ‘intoxicated’ instead of ‘high’ which I liked. He explained, continuing to write on the Post-It, that I would want higher CBD and low THC to avoid the intoxicating effect. I asked questions about what the oils’ availability and such was, hint hint, do you have this in stock right now? And he was oblivious to the subtlety until I finally asked, “Do you have any of this that I can actually LOOK at?”

“..Oh! Do you have a card?”

…That maybe should have been a first question, boyo. Yes, I did! He took my patient ID number, matched my card with my ID, and buzzed me into the back. The back was actually just a storefront, and not little offices at all. I have no idea why there are three doors. He pointed out the syringes, and suggested that I pipe out little dots on a piece of parchment and freeze them, and when I need a dose, just peel one off and take it like a pill. But he put the syringe back in the case. He walked over to the tinctures and pulled one out, a bottle of a strain called Harlequin. It is a glycerin base, so it will be sweet, he said, and I said, “OK I will try that” before he could put it back. And then I kind of looked around, saw the display for the “sour bhotz” and said, “Them robots, man.” He nodded and showed that the display was almost empty. “Obviously they’re very popular,” confirming that people actually do enjoy that feeling. Mystifying. They had all kinds of other medibles (whhhhhyyy) that I wouldn’t have minded looking over, but he didn’t seem inclined to show or sell. So in the end all I bought was the tincture, which was super gross and did nothing. Pot tastes like barf, so let’s make that barf SUPER SWEET and then have you hold it under your tongue for a few seconds before swallowing it okay? To make sure it’s completely warmed up and the oil spreads alllll over your mouth and makes everything taste gross for the next ten minutes and assure that you hate your life if you burp.

I wound up going back and buying a vaporizer (it is a vaporizer. It is not a vape. OH MY GOD YOU SOUND SO STUPID WHEN YOU SAY THAT. ‘Vapin!’ ‘I’m VAPIN! LOOKIT ME WITH MY VAPE’ HURR DE DURR) pen and a small assortment of different strain concentrates from a MUCH more helpful and sales-savvy assistant. No less knowledgeable and willing to educate, but much more willing to actually, you know, let me BUY something. I explained up front that I was looking to get an assortment of things to try and would come back for more of the thing that worked. I got one for anxiety, one for focus, and one that was the highest CBD concentration. I tried them all, and they stink both figuratively and literally (“It’s harmless, it’s just water vapor.” “If it were just water vapor it would be odorless. It is not. IT STINKS LIKE POT AND THAT IS HARMING ME.”). They don’t alter me or affect me in the same way as the stupid robots, which is good. But they don’t actually do much at all. They just taste bad and make me cough and then dry out my mouth really bad.

And to top it off? It doesn’t help anything. I don’t get calm, I get incapable of thought, which is frustrating. I’d actually rather be sad than frustrated, any day, and I’ll take crying because I feel powerless over getting angry because I literally can not remember the thing I was just trying to do. I don’t enjoy getting ‘high’ and I don’t see any benefit for the physical effects I’m trying to combat, so there really isn’t a point to it for me. I gave it several good tries, but pot is definitely Not For Me. I don’t see the appeal in how it makes you feel. I like not thinking about stressful things, but I don’t like being unable to think about anything at all. I don’t like having a 5 second attention span. It didn’t calm, it didn’t quiet, it just made it really hard to concentrate and impossible to do more than one thing at a time, like walk, which I already have enough problems with. I don’t enjoy feeling like my reactions are on a time delay and my density has increased a hundredfold. The muscle twitching either stays the same or strangely got so much worse. The cramping and sleeplessness and headaches are all still there.

So medical marijuana gets a big ol’ F. More power to you if it works out for you and your symptoms, I completely support you. Even if you just want to get high and watch cartoons, I support that, too, and I’m really trying hard to work on that whole ‘pot smokers are losers’ mindset from my childhood, I promise. Just don’t smoke it around me, please, because it stinks.

*This is actually technically absolutely true and did not need a qualifying statement.

**This is actually also totally true. I guess I just feel like making asterisked statements for no reason today.

***Also not helping, the fact that people who smoke pot but still have their shit together DON’T TEND TO TALK ABOUT SMOKING POT ALL THE TIME. So you don’t know they smoke and the visible perception of pot smokers as a collective is just the stupid loud people. Just like with religion and politics, really.

***Skyhigh, the LEAST RIDICULOUS ONE. Think about that, stoners. A MADE UP NAME WAS LESS SILLY.

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.

Noise

When I was younger and cooler and far more existentially miserable, I wore soft leather boots and flowing skirts and metal belts with chains and coins and bells that made a lot of noise. Not so many as my friend Bascha – you could hear her coming a mile away. But the chains around my waist and the handcuffs through the epaulets on my jacket and the many metal bracelets around my wrists and the key earring clanging against the rest of the rings told you I was around. I loved the weight around my hips like a hug, the bright glint of the lights catching everywhere. And when I danced, I’m sure they all made a wonderful clatter. I delighted in jogging down the stairs, listening to the pinging and the rattling sounds that I made.

Hi, I’m Strange, listen to my wonderful assortment of spanglery. I don’t actually want to be noticed, so much, I don’t want to have to interact with you, but I want you to be aware that I’m here, with my jangling cacophony of industrial noise. I had my own joyous soundtrack of chains and bits and keys and bells, shaking rhythmically to my own walk. I don’t march to a different beat, I am the drummer*.

I have a new soundtrack now, a more subtle one. I have new shoes and they make a lot of noise, because they’re not broken in yet. Creak-creak-creak of the fake leather. It goes with the skrtch skrtch scrtch of the Velcro on my braces. And the soft click, click, click of the cane. And the near constant ‘ahrm’ clearing of my throat due to whatever medication is causing that. It’s not such a joyful soundtrack, but it is my noise nonetheless. A song of medicine instead of industry.

Necessity drives this noise instead of a penchant for collecting shining metal bits, and the undertone is the same. I don’t want to be gawked at but I want you to be aware that I’m here, please don’t back in to me. This isn’t music I chose, but it’s not a bad one. I’m glad it’s not accentuated by the rustling of adult diapers or the scree scree scree of dragging an IV stand around. And not the vshhh vshhh vshh of assisted breathing. Not yet.

I am not so young. Not so cool. Not nearly so miserable, despite it all, and I wonder what my younger, noisier self would have thought about that. She’d be crushed we can’t dance anymore. She’d be confused why I’m so much more content than she is, all things considered. And I’d show her the support these medical noises bring, and the emotional support the medical need has brought, and I think she’d agree I have it better of the two of us.

It isn’t stopping me from thinking about buying a chain belt, though.

*All credit for that line goes to my dear friend Linnea, who uttered that bit of brilliance as we sat in my room as malcontented freaklet teens. I don’t think she ever knew how much that phrase inspired me and cemented my complete adoration of her.

Strong enough for a man

Things that should be gender-specific:

Medical Care
Supportive Undergarments

Things that should not be gender-specific:

Hammers
Water bottles
Pocky
Writing utensils

….actually come to think of it, those first two things are probably an all-inclusive list. All else is unisex. Unigender. Pangender? Social awareness is hard.

PSA, MARKETING IDIOTS: WOMEN DO NOT NEED SPECIAL PINK TOOLBOXES FOR OUR DAINTY WOMEN HANDS. I have ALS but I can punch you in the jimmies just as well as a man can. For now. And when I can’t? I’ll have Danielle do it. And she can hit like a truck, man. You do not want this.

What does this have to do with ALS? Not much. I was looking at knee braces just now and they have ones “for women” that look exactly like the ones that are just “knee braces”. And they’re the same. Only pink. Sometimes? Yes, medical gear needs to be gender specific. But my knee is built like any dude’s knee. Well, originally, anyway, or I wouldn’t need a knee brace I suppose. And so this turned in to this post, which you have just wasted precious minutes of your life reading.

You’re welcome.

Vanitas Veritas

Long before I was bestowed with the cosmic middle finger that is ALS, I was gifted with a genetic grab bag of fuckery called ectodermal dysplasia. (There’s GOT to be a cousin-marriage something or other back in my genealogy, because COME THE FUCK ON. My DNA is FUCKED. ) Anyway. I promise this is related to ALS, but I need to give you a bit of backstory.

Ectodermal Dysplasia, for those of you that can’t be bothered to google that shit, is a family of genetic disorders that causes defects in the hair, nails, sweat glands, and teeth. I have a VERY VERY mild case. Some people with these disorders are born with no sweat glands and have to wear cooling vests their whole lives, or have webbed fingers and toes, or no hair at all. I can sweat, I have some if not all of my teeth, I have hair at ALL, I’m ahead of the game. I am very fortunate that I was affected as little as I am.

But growing up with it as a kid?

Brutal.

My hair grew in transparent blonde and sparse, and only ever to about 2 inches long. Except on the sides of my head, that grew up to four in wispy little threads that flew away from my skull like feathery peachfuzz wings. When it got wet, it disappeared. My eyebrows were transparent blond, visible only when I got really angry and redfaced, so they stood out white on my face. My teeth grew in all kinds of crooked and brittle and some never grew in at all. My nails are these paper-thin shreds of nubbins. I was a very weird looking kid.

Fuck, man, you know how kids are little shitheads. I had the nickname Bald Eagle in my neighborhood. The older kids would see me coming and yell, “THE EAGLE HAS LANDED!” and run away. When I was in fourth grade, one of my girl classmates confided to me that one of the boys (that I happened to have a crush on) thought I *could* be cute – if I would just do SOMETHING to my hair, because it looked weird. I had a crooked, gappy smile that I hid behind my hand when I laughed. I had an expressionless face, because my eyebrows were THERE, they were just transparent. Even the adults joined in, unwittingly, mistaking me for a boy until puberty offered evidence to the contrary. I went to a flea market once, when I was about 8 or 9, and I was looking at this vendor’s pretty little necklaces and things, and the shopkeeper came over smiling, “Looking for something for your girlfriend, hmmm?” I was too embarrassed to correct him. When visiting my great grandmother, making the obligatory visit to her next door neighbor Mrs. Day (who always had Grandma Candy) I smiled and thanked her when she told me I was growing up to be such a big boy.

As you could imagine, I had a little bit of a gender issue growing up. It didn’t help that I have NEVER been good at “girl”; I really WANTED to be feminine and cute, but I felt like I was putting on an awkward costume that didn’t fit any time I tried. I was a social weirdo and never learned makeup or dressing girly, I felt awkward and weird, this androgynous thing that didn’t fit in anywhere. I was already Strange, my brain full of ideas that didn’t occur to most, a very intelligent and bored kid, standing out because I was a loner and never felt like I belonged to any of the little school cliques, not even the nerds. I was the weird kid in the back, and weird looking to boot. No seriously. Here’s me at 14, never having had a haircut in my life:

awkward14

My self confidence and ego never really had a chance.

Eventually I taught myself to embrace that weirdness and make it seem intentional – I dyed my hair strangely and scowled at everyone so they’d think that I MEANT to look that way. Androgyny was cool if you were a punk, man. Or something. I learned to hide it by being angry. I wore that anger as a shield, protecting the hurt and lonely little girl inside. The Bald Eagle is still a fucking RAPTOR man, and it will GOUGE YOUR EYES OUT AND FEAST ON YOUR LIVER. (Oh, poor, 16 year old me; I wish we could chat. How desperately you needed a hug.) But the anger just made me look weirder. My defiant, thrust out jaw just made my face square. My heavy lined eyes just made my invisible eyebrows more obvious. And I never smiled so no one would see my crooked teeth. And weird hair looks weird even if you try to make it look like you meant it.

Vasthi at 16

It took me a lot of years to work through that anger, slowly discovering and adding weapons to my arsenal in my Battle to Defeat Ectodermal Dysplaysia. Eventually I learned to draw on eyebrows to fix my expressionless face. To use false nails to hide and protect my little paperthin fingernails and have pretty, feminine hands at last (they were the one part of me I thought were pretty). I was introduced to hair extensions, after an unsuccessful flirting with wigs, and eventually I even came to revel in my ability to change my hair in a moment’s notice with them. Long hair today, short hair next week, long again the month after that. Through all of this, I let go of that angry teenager, who in turn stopped shielding the lonely and awkward little girl. I learned to allow myself to be a little bit feminine and dress like a girl sometimes, because I actually AM female, goddammit. And it looked cute on me.

And then I had good enough dental insurance to fix my crooked smile and have a beautiful smile for the first time in my life. That was a goddamned game changer. My brothers and I have all suffered the same over our crooked, missing, brittle teeth (I have the better teeth out of all three of us, but got totally ripped off in the hair department). All of us have dealt with being asked if we’ve ever used meth. By dentists. Having methmouth when you’ve never even so much as smoked pot or had an alcoholic drink makes you self-conscious as shit. And it’s cost all three of us countless opportunities. No one wants to hire a methhead. No one wants to date a weird looking girl with a wonky smile. So when I could afford to bridge the gap in my smile, to have straight teeth, I actually felt more normal and okay than I ever have in my life. I went from this:

to this:

And my world changed. And I felt like I finally won.

What does all of this have to do with ALS. I know. Relax, Sparky, I’m about to get there.

It was a slap in the face to be diagnosed with ALS RIGHT when I thought I had all my shit together. I had a really good job that I really like, I was financially stable. I had just bought a house like a Real Live Grownup. And at last? I was at a really good weight, my teeth were awesome, I knew how to do makeup sorta, my nails looked fantastic, and goddamnit I was PRETTY. FUCKING FINALLY. It took 38 motherfucking years, but I actually felt pretty, and smart, and stable. A Real Live Person Who Doesn’t Suck. I still had some shit to sort through, but I was doing pretty fucking good, all told.

…And then just when I think I have shit solid and good, ALS fucks it all up. I’m not going to be able to do my awesome job that I like, working with people I love, eventually. I have to sell the house I am in love with and didn’t even get to finish decorating because I can’t deal with stairs for much longer. I gained a fuckton of weight back because of my good friend Stress Eating. Hey, did you know there’s a German word for the weight you gain from emotional eating? Kummerspeck. It literally translates to “grief bacon”. Isn’t that the most AWESOME THING EVER. I mean, the weight gain sucked, but there’s a WORD FOR IT. And then being told by doctors DO NOT LOSE WEIGHT, you’re going to need it later, and people with extra pounds just tend to do better with ALS anyway. So here is your medical prescription to EAT WHATEVER YOU WANT. Don’t go all apeshit, I mean, we don’t want to have to fit you for a bariatric wheelchair, but you’re dying, fuck it, eat those nachos. Sucks about the not fitting into your clothes anymore though, yeah? Don’t worry, eventually you won’t be able to eat except through a tube and you’ll fit into all that again. So it all works out, yeah?

Where was I.

Right. Early on, it hit me, something stupid and vain – eventually I’m not going to be able to draw my fucking eyebrows on anymore. And I think I’ve just TOLD you why, that bothered the ever loving fuck out of me. I could rely on people to get me dressed, and probably put makeup on my face, but there were going to be days when none of us could be bothered to do that shit. And it really fucking bothered me to be reduced back to my 14 year old self. I had just CONQUERED that, I am not HER anymore. But I’m not going to be able to put on this Armor of Normal Seeming (+1 to appearance and +3 to charisma) forever. Towards the end of days, I’m going to be this emotionless husk, and I’m not even going to have any fucking eyebrows.

And it’s expensive, and vain, and fuck you I don’t care. I got permanent cosmetic tattooing done on Wednesday. I paid a stranger $395 to tattoo eyebrows on my face. And it looks fucking awesome.

And I can’t quite articulate the sense of..relief? Success? Booyah? Even though it was expensive and there are SO MANY better uses for the money, there’s a weight off of me with the knowledge that I can’t go back to 14 year old me anymore. I’m permanently done with her. My teeth are permanently okay, even if I DO still have a baby tooth on the bottom and not all of them ever grew in, they look like normal people teeth when I smile. And now my face is permanently okay, because I don’t have to draw on expression every day. What was already there has been highlighted, so when my hands no longer work, I can still quirk my eyebrow when you say something stupid. For awhile. And then I won’t be able to move my face at all, but my eyebrow game will still be fucking strong, yo. And I’ll never be that expressionless, angry little girl again. I’ve graduated, the tattoos on my face a diploma from Fuck That Shit University, signifying a degree in Being Just Fine, Thanks for Asking.

I am gonna go down, ALS is eventually going to kick my ass, but Ectodermal Dysplasia can fuck off forever. I beat it. I win.

The Eagle has fucking flown.

Password what?

Yyyyyyyyeah so that last post is locked down because it’s not really appropriate for the public.

I was/am very, very angry about A Thing, and wrote about it. I am angry about Some Things in general, and I also wrote about those because they’re related.

Those will probably get their own post because they’re not specific. The Thing was very specific and angry and name-cally and not really something I should put up here. But I WANT it here, because writing it made me feel a lot better, and I want to remember every piece of this. It borders on libel so it’s private, but it’s a piece of the map. I poured my anger into a post that belongs here, but there are definitely some things I probably shouldn’t say out loud. Which SUCKS! I’m DYING! I should be allowed to say WHATEVER I WANT!

But I realize I can’t. So when I’m gone, that post will be unlocked. <3 Just wanted you to know whyfor that last thing.

Talking to Strangers

I was on vacation in Leavenworth this weekend. It was partly to celebrate Danielle’s birthday (which is tomorrow, November 4th) and partly because we’ve been itching for a road trip awhile and a birthday was a good excuse. My weakness reined us in, for sure, but it’s a small town so we didn’t have to compromise much. There were three instances in which I told a total stranger about having ALS, the first being the woman who checked us in to the hotel apologetic as hell because our room was on the third floor when she saw I was using a cane. She asked what happened, had I broken my leg? She was very sympathetic when I told her of my diagnosis, and a little bit baffled because I was so young. She knew about ALS because of the Ice Bucket Challenge (I FUCKING LOVE THE ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE); she was very willing to be as accommodating as she could to help my stay be as easy as possible.

And the other two were on opposite sides of the spectrum.

++++++

One:

Danielle’s dropped me off at a shop to wait for her to park, because she has to park kind of far. (She wound up actually just parking at our hotel and walking the four blocks) I sat on a bench in front of the spice and tea shop we’re going to check out, and after a little while, an older woman with a walker approached. I asked if she’d like to sit, and scootched over to make room for her. I had been in the middle of adjusting my braces, because I’d left some velcro exposed (still haven’t made my straps, dammit) and it was catching on my socks. She asked what they were for, did I hurt myself? I told her that I had ALS, clarifying Lou Gehrig’s when her face was blanked.

“Oh. I’m so, so sorry,” she told me, with genuine sympathy.

“Thank you,” I told her sincerely. “I’m doing very well, though. It’s going to be okay.”

She was silent for awhile. “To tell you the truth,” she says quietly, “I wish to God it was me instead of you. You’re too young.”

I looked over at her and realized then that she was very near to crying. Her eyes were brimming with tears and she had a faraway look. “Oh, sweetie, I’m okay, I PROMISE,” I told her quickly. “My progression is so slow. Nothing hurts. I’m okay, it’s alright.”

She asked how old I was, and repeated “too young” when I told her. We introduced ourselves to each other, her name was Sheila. She asked a little bit about my progression, my symptoms, what my support structure was like. She agreed in the end that I was in the best possible situation and seemed mollified, but still upset. Danielle showed up then, and we said goodbye.

Once we were in the store, I said quietly, sheepishly, “I just made a total stranger cry.”

Two:

We stopped on the way home, randomly, in Goldendale, Washington. Because we needed a pee break and we’d never been there before. We discovered an honest to god observatory, saw some deer in a graveyard, and then Danielle saw a bookshop and wanted to go in. The book store turned out to be an Everything Store – the guy had literally everything. Books, jewelry, games, toys, fishing gear, light bulbs, office supplies, plumbing gaskets, literally everything. The shopkeep was named Dan, and came out when he heard us come in.

“Good morning,” he said cheerfully. “How are you today?”

“Fantastic,” I told him, “you?”

“Wellllll I was GONNA say ‘hobbling along’, but saw your cane and thought better not.”

I laughed and told him it would have been alright. He told me to have a look around and tell him if I needed help finding anything, he probably has it. After looking around a bit, I conceded, “You really DO have a little bit of everything.”

I stood at the counter while Danielle looked around. He looked over to me. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened? Is it an injury? Something you were born with?”

“ALS,” I told him, “Lou Gehrig’s – recently diagnosed.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said.

I gave him what is now my standard, “Thank you. I’m doing really well, though.”

And after awhile he smiled and said, “You know, I can tell. You’re going to be okay, you’re handling this great. You have a very bright spirit. You’re handling this with the right attitude; you’re gonna be fine. Nothing’s gonna get you down.”

I grinned and told him he was absolutely right. I have the slowest progression, the best support network, and the most amazing friend in Danielle. “That’s the right way to be about it,” he said.

We introduced ourselves, and had a little chat about the origin of my name, he told Danielle and I about the apartment he had in the basement of the store for his kid (“I didn’t want him living at home”) that his son never moved in to, his other property in a town of 93 people, the work he does on it. We chatted about a whole lot of little things while Danielle figured out what she wanted to buy. I bought some Topps stickers – because I’d been on vacation 3 days and hadn’t bought ANY – and instead of selling me five packs for $10, he asked if I’d like to buy the whole box for $15. I said heck yes. We said our goodbyes with a promise to stop in again if we were in the neighborhood. He repeated his complete confidence that I was going to handle this just fine.

We left the shop, and I was in a great mood.

++++++

Both reactions were sincere, neither was an incorrect way to behave. Your reactions are entirely your own. The only ways you could possibly screw it up when I tell you about my disease is to a) gasp and tell me it’s SUCH an awful disease and it’s going to get so much worse, or b) tell me it’s my own fault somehow for a life of sin or something. Or laugh. That would be pretty bizarre and awful of you.

Both reactions sincerely touched me. One left me troubled, one left me buoyant. Neither of my reactions are the responsibility of the person invoking them. I have a hard time accepting the inverse, though. When I tell someone about the diagnosis, and it predictably troubles them, I feel guilty and responsible for bringing them down. It’s not my fault. And it’s not her fault that her deep sadness troubled me so much. It was not his job to cheer me up. And it’s not my responsibility to sugar coat or put a smiley face on a terrible situation.

It is not my responsibility, but it is my nature. And I could tell it was his, too. He and I are of the same “Fuck it, it’s gonna be alright” mentality.

And sometimes, I’m of her mindset, too. This is terrible, I feel helpless, I wish I could change it.

Both reactions are correct and useful, in their own turn. And I’m happy to have met both of them, this weekend. It’s put words to perspective, and both of them were very sweet people and I’m glad they spoke the words they did. It means the world to me, to know I’m not alone when I’m sad, and to know there are cheerleaders who have got my back when things look awesome.

Even when – especially when – that support is from complete strangers.

TMI : The Bleedies

Soooooo in the days, months, years ahead, there’s gonna be a lot of uncomfortable stuff. Things you don’t talk about in polite company. But the point of this blog is to document EVERYTHING, and well, I know some people are curious about this sort of thing. SO let me educate you.

If talking about shark week, Vampire tea parties, communists in the funhouse, girl flu, a red light special downtown, a crime scene in your pants, or rebooting the ovarian operating system makes you feel uncomfortable or squicky? Then now’s your time to bail. Here’s a picture of kittens to wipe your mind clear.

Still with me? Okay.

While contemplating everything after my diagnosis, envisioning my future, thinking about all the practicalities, it occurred to me. What the hell am I going to do about my period? I imagine MOST people with ALS have already gone through menopause so it might not be a common question. But it’s just one more damned thing to deal with, that I am not going to be able to take care of myself. And some nurse dealing with that? Man, why. So I brought it up with Doctor Goslin, and she said when the time came, I could talk to my primary about options.

I decided the time had come.

I wanted to start the process now, when I could still deal with it under my own power and remain in complete control. And I wanted to give myself time to adjust to any side effects NOW, to allow enough time to go by to make sure that I had it under control before life was beyond my own control. I decided to go to Planned Parenthood instead of my primary, because they’d have all of the information about ALL of the methods. I wanted options and informed decisions. I did a lot of research on my own, and I really liked the idea of the implant, but that wasn’t a guaranteed stop to menstruation. So I went with an open mind.

It took me a little bit to find it, but it was made easier by the honest to god protest happening outside. Fetus posters and everything. They didn’t fuck with me though, they just stood across the street singing hymns. There was a sign in the upstairs window that said, “Hello protesters! Donors have agreed to give $37 for every one of you that shows up today! Thank you for coming!”

Heh.

Mannnnnnnnn it took FOREVER. I was half an hour early to my appointment and was taken back 45 minutes after my appointment time. I talked a little bit about it to the aide, she gave me some preliminary information, asked if I wanted AIDS and siphyllis/gonorrhea testing, was I being abused, had I ever been pressured into sex, did I feel safe at home? no, no, no and yes, thank you, I’m fine. She also reminded me it had been 4 years since I’ve had That Thing That Really Sucks and they recommend it every three. Would I like to take care of that today. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOkay FINE.

So the clinician came in and we had a long chat about all of the options. Half of them were out because I have a history of headaches and migraines which estrogen would exacerbate. The implant was not recommended because not only is it NOT a guaranteed end to menstruation, the effects vary wildly. Some women get heavier periods. Some women get spotting, some have irregular and unpredictable flows. So that was out. Which is a SHAME because I’d really like to only have to think about this once every three years, and the idea of a little plastic matchstick under my skin on my arm is creepycool.

We decided on depo-provera. It’s a shot in the arm, once every three months. It’s a hormone called progestin, a slow release that prevents ovulation. She told me that she has another woman who comes in regularly with her developmentally disabled daughter, and the daughter gets the shot as a matter of hygiene so it’s not at all an unheard of application. She had me take a routine pregnancy test first. Just cause. Even though it would be a second-in-history MIRACLE if I were. We did the Thing That Really Sucks, and then she stabbed me in the arm with a needle and I was sent on my way.

My arm’s a little sore. I was told I might gain weight, so maybe just be a little careful about what I eat, and depo CAN cause bone brittleness (yay?) so take calcium. I’ll see how this goes from here. When I left, the protesters were gone and it started raining BUCKETS as I walked to the train stop. A really amazingly nice woman shared her umbrella with me, because of course I didn’t have one. This is Portland man, we don’t believe in umbrellas (SPOILER: YES WE TOTALLY DO. It’s just that it doesn’t usually RAIN here, just this nagging persistent drizzle that only barely counts as rain and you don’t need an umbrella for that you sissy. But when a half block walk had me soaked to the skin? Yes, yes I WOULD like an umbrella. Thank you, lovely lady.)

We will see how this goes. I’ll keep you updated. And now you have an answer to a question you might have been afraid to ask, or didn’t occur to you. So when someone asks, what do women with ALS do about their periods? Now you totally know.

The Walk to Defeat ALS

Overwhelmed. In the BEST of ways.

I’ve gone on and on before about how grateful I am for the support I’ve gotten, how much I appreciate the support I’ve been given, how blown away at the love I’ve been shown. It’s probably become a little bit tiresome.

Well, suck it. There’s a lot more coming.

I admit I totally got press-ganged into doing the Walk in the first place. The Veterans Resource Group had a table in the cafe at work. I stopped by to chat, and met another person who ALSO had ALS for the first time. (I’ve met a fair few since then. We’re a small crew, but we run – or hobble or ride – in the same circles.) Part of the table’s purpose, besides awareness, was to recruit people for the Walk to Defeat ALS. “You should form a team,” I was told. “I bet you’d get a lot of support.”

I was of two opinions on that. On the one hand, it’s asking for something. I’m not good at that. On the other hand, a tiny irrational fear, ‘what if I form a team and no one shows up?’ While I was debating this in my head, a coworker walked up to the table to see what I was up to.

“Vashti’s making a walk team, do you want to join her?”

He looked at me, “You are?”

“I…uh. Apparently!”

And that’s how it started. I put up a poster outside my cube, I wore the red wristband, I talked openly and honestly about the diagnosis when I was asked, but I felt really weird about asking my friends to come over in support of me. I caved and asked my friends to help me name the team at least. We had a lot of really good suggestions, but in the end, The Godzilla Squad won out. On the 16th, I posted my team link.

On the 17th of August – the next DAY, for those of you playing at home – I was at 17 members and over $1000 raised.

To say I was overwhelmed is a gross understatement. So, fun fact! I’d never cried for joy before. I always thought it would be kind of cool if something like that happened to me, but I am not sentimental in the right ways, I guess, so it never happened. Until then.

The Ice Bucket Challenge gained serious momentum, and so did my team. On the 26th, I was at $3k and 26 people. A dear friend of mine in Sacramento also started a team in my name, Team Dinsdale. We met online waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy back in the day, before the Internet was a thing, when you had to dial directly in to someone’s computer and leave messages on a digital bulletin board. In the BBS days, my first handle was Dinsdale.

Life continued its usual frantic pace, there was a lot happening, and before I knew it, it was the final weekend. I had four people staying at my house to attend, and one flew in from Sacramento to be here for me. I was spoiled absolutely ROTTEN that weekend, with homemade Ethiopian food of amazingness, fancyface ice cream and donuts for dessert, and the best company a girl could ever ask for.

And then, Walk Day. This is my team:

Because ALS isn't going to stomp itself out.
Because ALS isn’t going to stomp itself out.

Amazing people, every one.

We gathered in a spot that was strategic and awesome until the live band started playing. Right. Bloody. There. But we were VERY easily distinguishable in the crowd with the hoodies (OMG SO AMAZING LEENDAH I LOVE YOU) and Danielle, my main babe, had printed out the kitten-vs-Godzilla picture I’d been using for my Walk page, and attached them to an umbrella. And Matt. Oh my golly Matt. He had commissioned a mighty cape of DOOM and a head cover for his staff:

Matt the Majestic

IS THAT NOT AWESOME.

Yes of course it is, don’t even bother answering.

There were a LOT of people there. Oh my god so many. I’m really glad I had my team around me so I was constantly distracted by OH MY GOD HI I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU IN FOREVER instead of ..holy crap I am in the biggest of big crowds and this sucks. We borrowed wheelchairs,Danielle and I, because I can walk a mile, but it sucks, and I think three is out of the question. Danielle had to borrow one because her foot is borked and it hurts her a lot to be on her feet at ALL and walking three miles is similarly out of the question.

It was a FANTASTIC walk. Well. Roll. I got pushed. The chair was surprisingly easy to wheel myself around in, but I had a lot of people willing to help me out. There’d been cold and rain suddenly, but it cleared up in time to be LOVELY for the walk day. Even a little too warm to wear the hoodies all day, for they were made of fleece and are SO COMFY AND WARM but maybe not the best when standing for a while in direct sunlight. Megan was the smart one, she held the umbrella. Some surprise faces showed up – I didn’t expect my older brother there, he told me he had to work but then didn’t have to! – and met a couple new friend-of-friend faces and did not at ALL have time to introduce everybody to everybody. We walked a really pleasant stroll along the waterfront, and groups connected and drifted as we walked.

We finished, exultant, and some of us stayed for a picnic, and some of us had to get back on the road.

I am so. so. so incredibly grateful. I am grateful to everyone who came. Everyone who couldn’t come but donated. Everyone who couldn’t come OR donate, but thought about me.

In the end, my team was 49 members strong, more than 35 of whom showed up to walk, and $5460 raised.

I’ve always strived to be the kind of person someone would care deeply about, and like having around. I …I guess I managed that, if the support and love I’ve been shown is ANY kind of indicator.

I love you all. You’re amazing and the world is lucky to have you in it.

Being a Force for Good

I have committed and embraced the Walk to Defeat ALS in Portland. This is a thing. It’s happening. As my team is called The Godzilla Squad, it was suggested (jokingly) that we could all get these:

RAWR
Godzilla REPRESENT

I thought that was basically the best thing ever. I said I TOTALLY needed that. Though, that thing is like $75 and I didn’t really mean that; hahahah how would I justify affording that, no matter how awesome it was? Someone suggested that we make them our team costume, which I agreed would be awesome and hilarious. And then my darling friend Leendah said, “How many do you need and when?”

…I had almost forgotten that Leendah is a kickass costume designer in real life.

Long story short, she is making dinosaur hoods and hoodie sweatshirts for my team at cost.

And the amazing kept happening. People I have not seen in literally a dozen years have signed up to walk with me. My friend Marina not only donated to the walk, but offered to sponsor two people walking with me who wanted hoodies but couldn’t afford the $50. My team is already 8 people strong and has raised $450. That’s….amazing. Seriously, seriously amazing.

There are going to be two talks here at Intel, to recruit for the walk and to just flat out solicit donations, and I’ve agreed to speak at both of them. I am apparently the only person with the disease (that the ALS Association knows about) who currently works at Intel. It’s one thing to say “please give us support in the name of this guy who used to work here and has died”, but it’s another to say “Hi. I work with you guys. You might have seen me in the halls, even, I’m kinda stand-outy. I have this disease, it sucks, please give us a hand.” I’m hardly a Fundraising Warrior or anything, and I’ll never be a marketer even for this – I’m not built for it at all. But if my voice can help out, then I’ll use it towards this goal, while I can.

Tomorrow, for our team staff meeting, I asked my manager for permission to tell the team about it and see if any more of them wanted to join me. I’m not really asking for money, and it won’t cost Intel anything, so he said okay. I’m nervous about it – I’m not good at asking people for something, as I’ve said, but I also realize that for a fair few of them, it will probably be the first time they’ve heard about my disease. And that I have it.

So THAT will be interesting. I am hoping it’s a positive experience with a minimum of awkward.

This is not at all how I imagined my life would turn out to be. But I have to say, I’m not entirely discontent. Some fucking AMAZING people have come out of the woodwork, and my disease has given me some unique opportunities and put people in my orbit that wouldn’t have been there otherwise. I’m really very grateful.

As usual, babies, I’ll tell you how it went, tomorrow.

The Interview

I’m very, very glad I took the whole day off. Social anxiety is exhausting!

The reporter was scheduled to come at 9. Shana, the Assistive Technology Services Coordinator for my local chapter of ALSA, showed up early so we could devise our battle plan. I really like Shana – she’s good people. We met for lunch Tuesday, and I liked her instantly. The reporter ended up being late, due to “breaking news” (there was an officer involved shooting that morning), so we just hung out for awhile while my nephew’s cat Brobee whored himself alllllllllllllllll over her. Seriously, that cat is ridiculous. Luckily, Shana is also cat owned, so she was nice about it.

The reporter and Camera Guy Pete arrived around 9:30, and they…were both really nice people, actually. I was kind of expecting someone plasticky and false, but she was very nice, and won me over when she not only said hi to Brobee, but pulled up a picture of HER cat on her phone. Cats. They bring people together. Hehe. They set up the camera at my dining table, and then the interview was…very quick and informal and I hope to GOD I was half articulate. She asked how old I was, when I was diagnosed, and was surprised when I said just this last April. She asked several questions about voice banking, and I hope I came across as passionate and not stupidnerdy about the whole thing. And then she asked how ALS has affected me so far, because she’s not seeing it.

“Well there’s these,” I said, swinging my legs around. I wore a knee length skirt that morning, with purple houndstooth knee socks, so the braces were not in your face, but not hidden either.

“Oh, I didn’t even realize that’s what they were. I thought maybe they were..a goth thing?” hahahhaha what.

“Well I’m going to replace the velcro with leather, so it will seem even more intentional then, ” I told her.

They interviewed Shana on my couch, next, and she was very passionate and bubbly and full of hope and information. Awesome. They filmed me walking up the stairs, and then we set up in my office. Shana sat next to me while I did the thing, and I showed them around the very simple ModelTalker software. I recorded a couple of simple phrases, demonstrating how I could play it back. Marilyn (by the way, the reporter’s name is Marilyn. Probably shoulda said. It’s the same name as my mom, so that was weird.) asked me about banking custom phrases, and Shana explained that’s not really ModelTalker, that’s just something separate that you can do; make a recording of your own phrases and then put them along with the Artificial You on your soundboard so you can just hit a button to say “WORD UP HOME SKILLETS” or whatever. She asked if I could do some of that, so I pulled up Adobe Audition and recorded “Seriously? …SERIOUSLY.” for her, and played it back, and showed how I could crop the file to just include the phrase. She asked me to record “I love you” so I did that, and then, with Shana’s giggling prompting, I recorded, “You are getting on what might actually be my last nerve.”

It was glorious.

And then I looked over at my doorway and the reporter was stifling a laugh so I felt a lot better about the whole thing.

Pete filmed me walking down the stairs, and then filmed me in my kitchen pretending to bake something. Well I was actually baking, but mostly it was waiting for eggs to become meringue for macarons. (Which didn’t even turn out in the end because I was super distracted and not doing it properly, but they still tasted okay.) They packed up, then, and all said their goodbyes and headed off to talk to the other woman involved in this story, who is much further along her progression and uses ModelTalker. She’s apparently on a vent, so the idea of us all meeting at my house was laughable.

It was around 11 then, so I played around with Sims3 for about an hour and then took a nap for four.

Overall, I think it went okay. Hopefully I was semi-articulate, and was able to convey some of the awesome energy I feel about the ModelTalker option. BECAUSE VOICE BANKING IS AMAZING. They assured me I did alright. Marilyn said that the story isn’t likely to run next week, but the week after; but she’d email us to tell us when.

And when I know, I’ll let YOU know.