(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)
I couldn’t resist this nice sky on my way to work. I stopped at Point Mountain and took the short hike up the trail to take these photos. (Yes, wearing my tie and all.) It’s not much of a hike, only a few minutes or so, depending on how many functioning lungs you have.
But that was before THIS happened.
(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)
B as in blindspots.
B as in brain mush.
B as in BLAM, BLAM, BLAM. Three to the head.
“Ahhhhhh, Wam, Blam, Thank-you, ma’am!” (Yes, B is for Bowie.)
They sneak up on you. They pounce on you. They decapitate you.
They wreck your day.
Then…
You take drugs!
Ahhhhhh! Drugs!
My morning started off fine. I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, even after only four hours sleep. (I know, B is for bozo for not getting enough sleep, as usual.) The ride to work wasn’t bad. I even stopped and took a few photos along the way. I got coffee with my usual coffee peeps when I got to work. Everyone was in a good mood.
Then I went to a training class at 9:30. By 10:15 I had spots in my eyes and could hardly see the PowerPoint slides. I scrawled out a note that said, “I’m dying. I have to go take medicine,” to a friend sitting next to me. But when I started to stand up, I got a cramp in the back of my left leg. I couldn’t move. It hurt so bad I thought I was going to scream. Not wanting to interrupt the class, I sat as still as I could and attempted to use mind control to relieve the cramp. (Think of Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill.” “Wiggle your big toe.” Only substitute hamstring for toe. “Wiggle your big hamstring.”) However, my brain was in mid-collapse. I drifted from control right into, “Gee, I wish I had a banana right now. Bananas have vitamin K or phosphorous or something that helps cramps. Oh! What I’d give for a banana right now! Does anyone have a banana?” I was able to regain some composure and slip out of the class without drawing attention to myself. I returned to my desk, choked down my pills, and plopped my head on my desk for 10 minutes.
Then the medicine kicked in. Ahhhhhh! It relieved most of the pain. But it doesn’t do anything for the fatigue and nausea. Another problem with the medication is that it is 500% caffeine. It’s a catch-22. My body is exhausted and wants to enjoy the comfort of a coma. But I get so wired from the caffeine that I can’t sleep. I can’t even sit still. I can’t stop talking and I get pretty goofy. (goofier) I also can get rather spacey at times while on the medication.
Today I became extremely hungry about an hour after I got the headache. I bought eggplant parmigiana with pasta and green beans from the cafeteria. I wolfed that down and was still hungry. So I went back downstairs to get a grilled cheese sandwich and rice pudding. There was no rice pudding, but I got the grilled cheese.
On my way back to my desk, I passed a meeting room in which several people were sitting at a table, including the friend who was in the training class earlier. As I passed, she raised her eyebrows at me. I was extremely spacey at that point and wondered why she looked at me that way. Then I remembered. I was supposed to be in that meeting! Holy crap! I tossed the sandwich on my desk and rushed back to the meeting room. I was only five minutes late. Lucky for me, a few people were later than I was and the meeting had not started yet. Unlucky for me, I was extremely spacey during the meeting. It was one of the best corporate meetings I’ve ever had the privilege of participating in!
For the past few years, I recorded each time that I had a migraine. In my private journals I wrote down when I had a migraine, what the suspected causes were, etc. Of course, B is also for boring and rather than constantly recording boring migraine entries, I began drawing descriptive pictures when I had the headaches. They started out as basic stick figures/non-smiley faces, some with axes in their skulls or cracks in their foreheads. These evolved into more creative drawings. One is a scene of a Turkish executioner chopping my head off with a big blade. Another is a boot stomping on my head causing teeth to fly out of my mouth. One is two fat people squishing my head between their cellulite-ridden rear ends. My favorite is the one I drew when I had a migraine on Easter. My head looks like a broken colored Easter egg. The insides are spilling out on the ground while two Easter bunnies hop up and down on my body. It’s all part of my grand mission of turning misfortune into artful beauty. (Even though this article is devoted to the letter B, I don’t think I’ll tell you about my “blood art.” You might think it is blatantly bizarre.)
So that’s the babble for the day. Just a tale of a busted head. Now there is only one last B word in my head. (No, KarenD, it’s not ratty BRAS.) It’s BED. I think I better get to it.
Bye!
An AlphaBytes Project – The Letter B
(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)
I stand corrected.
The fourth Marx brother is ZEPPO, not Zippo as I incorrectly stated in my journal article for May 31, 2004. Zippo is the lighter.
(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)
IF YOU BROWSE around through my journal entries, sooner or later you are going to realize that music is a big part of my life. You will probably realize it sooner than later. My second entry mentions music, none other than The Beatles. However, as you browse, you will realize that I am a super Alice Cooper freak.
Now I realize that some of you will just say, “Well, that just makes you a FREAK period!” Hey, Alice isn’t for everybody. But he is for those of us who happen to be cool, those of us who know good tunes (at least Alice’s 70’s music) when we hear them, those of us who happen to be drawn to the freak show that is Alice Cooper.
Alice isn’t all freak though. He’s not only about dead babies, boa constrictors, guillotines, and nooses. The music of the original Alice Cooper band, especially, was basic rock-n-roll for the most part. A lot of the darker themes and theatrics were weird and humorous in their own ways. But much of the music was solid and some of it has stood the test of time.
Alice Cooper was originally the name of a band that included Dennis Dunaway, Glen Buxton, Neal Smith, Michael Bruce and Vincent Furnier. Rumor has it that the name Alice Cooper was the name of a 17th century witch that the band contacted through a ouija board. Later, Vincent Furnier took the name as his own. Once the original band split up in 1975, he was Alice Cooper.
There is no denying that Alice Cooper’s musical quality suffered after the band broke up. He became better known for his shocking theatrics and concept albums, such as “Welcome to My Nightmare,” “Alice Cooper Goes to Hell,” and “From the Inside.” His reputation for theatrics grew, but the style and caliber of his music was disappointing for most of us who loved the music.
However, there is good news for those of us who loved the music of the original Alice Cooper band! Last fall, Alice released an album called “The Eyes of Alice Cooper.” Most of it is in the vein of the old Alice sound. I was thrilled to death when I heard it! (Or should I say I “Loved it to Death?”) Finally! The return of the true Alice! “The Eyes of Alice Cooper” is classic Cooper offerings. It has the good old basic rock, a few songs that could lend themselves to theatrics, and the typical Alice Cooper humor. After hearing this album, I felt that my musical life had almost come full circle.
I say “almost full circle” because one thing is lacking. I have never seen Alice Cooper in concert. “For shame!” you say. You see, the Alice Cooper band had split up by the time I discovered them. I was only 12. Their album “School’s Out” was the very first album I ever bought. Even if the band still was together then, I was too young to go to one of their concerts. And I certainly couldn’t expect my mom to take me. She was too busy listening to her music, evil nasty stuff. I almost saw an Alice Cooper concert later in high school. But that didn’t work out. I lost interest after that for a number of years.
For some time now it has been a dream of mine to buy Alice Cooper concert tickets. My dream has been to knock on my cousin’s door, tickets in hand, and say, “Look what I got! Let’s go!” For it is I who turned my cousin on to the music. I am to blame for my cousin’s love of a man named Alice. When I was 12 and he 14, I pulled out my “School’s Out” album, which looked like an old school desk with the top that opened to reveal the record wrapped in paper panties. I disrobed the vinyl and gently laid it on the turntable. My cousin fell in love at 33 1/3 rpms.
Last week I had the opportunity to fulfill my dream. Alice Cooper is playing at Musikfest in Bethlehem, PA in August, just 20 minutes away from my home. I bought tickets. No, I bought VIP tickets in the ninth row from the center of the stage. When the tickets arrived in the mail, I wrote my cousin’s name on one of them, drove to his house, knocked on his door.
“Hey, cuz… I got something in the mail that has your name on it! Look… right there… And it also has the name ‘Alice Cooper’ over here…”
“Dude!! You bought Alice Cooper tickets?? And you want ME to go?? Rock-n-roll!!”
That’s right, cuz, rock-n-roll. I turned you on to Alice in 1975. I’m obligated to take you to one of his concerts. I’ve waited a long time for this opportunity. Seeing your eyes light up as you held that ticket was a dream come true. I doubt that even Alice himself can top that.
An AlphaBytes Project – The Letter A
(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)
Zero, zip, zilch…
That’s how much I’m writing tonight. I’m tired. I have pneumonia. I don’t feel like writing. I think I’ll watch a movie instead. Maybe I’ll watch “Pulp Fiction” since I’m in a Tarantino mood after watching “Kill Bill 1” with my friend Suzy today.
Actually, what I’m doing is cheating. (Not something a zaddik should do, I know. Not even one wearing a zucchetto. Though one would question the appropriateness of a zaddik wearing a zucchetto.) In my zeal to get started with the AlphaBytes project for June, I am writing an article and posting it today! Ha! It’s still only May! The goal of the project is to write a journal entry for each of the letters of the alphabet. Being as zany as I am, I thought I’d start with the last letter instead of the first. So, you can thank the letter Z, affectionately known as “zed” to some of you outside of America, for this entry.
Not wanting to stay up too later, let me just write a few words since I’m here. I promise not to use the words zucchini, zebra or zygote. I will, however, listen to Frank Zappa while writing this. As a cultural note, I must say that zuppa inglese sounds absolutely delicious, especially the rum part.
Change of plans… Let’s listen to Warren Zevon instead.
Like I said above, I have pneumonia. WHAT? How did that happen?? Exzactly my thoughts! (Slipped that one in there. Heh.) You might remember that I mentioned having bronchitis back in December. The doctor that treated me then, the one who looked like Groucho Marx (not Zeppo), said that I was also experiencing bronchospasms. I had a lot of wheezing.
The breathing difficulties never went away. I was always out of breath, sometimes receiving both the concern and ridicule of those around me as I huffed and puffed up the stairs. So I went to the doctors again in March. Groucho’s partner thought that I might be developing asthma. So he gave me some asthma medicine and told me to get a chest x-ray, even though he didn’t expect anything to show up on the x-ray. Since he didn’t seem too concerned, and I’m a big procrastinator, I didn’t go for the x-ray until mid-April.
When I called for more asthma medicine a week ago, the nurse informed me that my x-ray showed that I had pneumonia in my left lung. Say what??? “Didn’t anyone call you, Mr. Snyder? The doctor wanted you on antibiotics a month ago!” No, no one called me! I heard zero, zip, zilch!
Well, I picked up the antibiotics, Zithromax, as a matter of fact. Today was the tenth day after starting the medication. Guess what. I’m still a wheezing, hacking, huffing, puffing one-lunged tired sucker! I called the doctor on Friday to see what I should do next. He was on vacation and his receptionist told me not to worry about it and just call next week sometime. I don’t think so. This sucker’s going to a different doctor.
You know, a half-year of not being able to breathe properly is enough. The fatigue is driving me crazy. I am not the kind of person who can simply shut down and rest. I don’t want to miss anything. There are too many things to do in the world. I always say that I wish I could just go without sleep completely. Who needs it? I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Well, under the circumstances, if I don’t rest now, I might be dead sooner than I want to be.
But what did I do this weekend? On Saturday, I drove the kids around to work and such, something I do nearly every day now. Then I took a drive to Merril Creek Reservoir, intending to walk around for a few hours and take a few photos. That turned out to be a zoological wonder! The place was swarming with cicadas. It was unbelievable! But that’s a story for the letter C. After a few hours of walking among the billions of bugs, I went home and fell asleep for a few hours. That is completely out of character for me!
On Sunday, I took Suzy to Merril Creek to witness the cicadas. We ended up hiking the five-mile trail around the perimeter of the reservoir. Believe it or not, I made it all the way on just half a functioning lung. Later, I fell asleep again. Exhausted.
Today, Memorial Day, I drove kids to jobs, picked one up an hour later after Burger King lost electrical power. I did manage to take it easy for most of the day though. Our little town had a Memorial Day parade. I haven’t decided to write about that under the letter M for Memorial Day, P for parade, or F for the whole 15 minutes that the parade lasted. Maybe I should use B for boring. Other than that, I did some laundry and watched “Kill Bill.”
Speaking of movies… I gotta go. Warren is almost done singing.
My apologies to ZZ Top for not mentioning them in this article.
(Just out of curiosity… Do you consider yourself to be zoophagous?)
I guess “Zero, Zip, Zilch” wasn’t exactly fitting for this article. I should have called it zomething else.
An AlphaBytes Project – The Letter Z