Chemo is an Interesting Monster - Round 2

Yesterday I had my second round of treatment for the two drug cocktail. For people keeping score, I'm now 1/2 way through the first 4 cycles. I'll have an additional 12 of a different drug after these are done. I am tolerating it ok as long as I stay on top of my nausea-med schedule and am very careful about eating on time/sleeping when I need to. Except for this whole immune system thing.

The following may be TMI, so feel free to stop here with reassurance that as of this morning I still have hair, I'm not horking everywhere, and I'm going to beat this with somewhat less energy/determination than Maggie Smith while she Professor McGonnegal'd during breast cancer chemo, but still, I'll get there. Yes I just made McGonnegal a verb, and why shouldn't she be?

I went to Round 1 on the 16th with a cold. THE cold everyone else is getting right now, with the cough that lasts a couple of weeks and generally makes life miserable and snotty. The nurses all felt terrible for me as I coughed into a mask while they did the chemo dance. So let's discuss the actual process here.

1. weight/BP/temp collected
2. Remember that port under the skin in my chest I had surgically installed on the 9th? The one where I HORRIFIED my surgeon by casually commenting I'd get an all-over skull tattoo before my hair grows back (to which he visibly recoiled before patting my knee and saying "you do you", and my mom and I cackled like a couple happy witches in the pre-op room)? At chemo, you pick whatever heated reclining chair you prefer out of the 3 areas of chairs, grab a snack and some water, and settle in for a WHILE. Then, the nurse comes to stick an L shaped needle into the port and tape it down, which makes me instantly IV'd.
3. IV flush. I can taste and smell rubbing alcohol in the back of my throat. Gross. 
4. Port draw. Chemo nurses are very charming, kind vampires who take as many vials of blood as they want, thanks. 
5. Now we start the drugging, but not chemo yet. First, three small syringes of prescription anti-nausea meds. Those stay in my system about 48 hours, so this morning I'm currently on 5 different drugs just to combat nausea. FUN! My mouth is dry. 
6. My treatment currently consists of two different chemotherapy: the first is bright red and comes in 3 big syringes. The nurse has to administer them by hand because each syringe goes in over 10 minutes and if any gets on my skin it's a bad deal. We chat about her kids and how the holidays are going and other random things, then after the third one is in we wait a few minutes with the saline drip. 
7. Please note the saline drip or some other liquid has now been pumping fluids into my central line IV for about an hour straight. 
8. The final round of IV drugs hangs for about an hour. My bladder can NEVER make it that long, but luckily the bathrooms are huge and the IVs are on wheels, so much like the boys in Armageddon I can wheelie myself down the hall to pee. Unlike them, I get to be in real clothes and there's no anal probing first. I promise that link is SFW. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go watch Armageddon again. 
9. AFTER the chemo is done, I get my alien attachment. Instead of anything icky, it's more like  temporary insulin pump that sticks to my belly and waits 27 hours before injecting a booster that helps my bone marrow make more white blood cells. Turns out this one is pretty damned important. 

Remember the cold? So I tolerated round 1 of chemo just fine, didn't have some of the worse side effects that could happen (I knocked on all the wood, really). But I had that stupid cold. Which was fine until Saturday, then it kicked my ass in no uncertain terms. I spent Saturday night until Monday morning in bed, unable to do anything but drink water and throw up and sneeze and cough. I lost 18lbs. I went in for chest x-rays on Monday last week to check for pneumonia - nope, just bronchitis. "Just" bronchitis. So last week while Christmas was sort of happening I was drugged to the teeth with a steroid, big time cough syrup, antibiotics, and an inhaler. And orders to go directly to the ER if I get a temperature at all. Fun times. Remember how Chemotherapy is intended to kill rapidly-growing cells (this is why hair loss is a side effect - it can't distinguish which KIND of fast-growing cells)? That means white blood cells too...which make up the majority of your immune system and are made in bone marrow. One week after chemo, Oncology does labs again to check how low my immune system dropped because that gives us a baseline. Mine was frighteningly low...so I've been mostly hermiting or wearing a mask when I'm out in public because I can't get strep. I can't get the flu. I can't get whatever next cold is coming around...I don't want a repeat of that weekend before Christmas.

TODAY is the day after treatment 2, and I mostly feel good. I figure the cough will stick around a while yet but I seem to be over the rest, and the worst thing I'm dealing with today is random tiredness. Eating breakfast (so I can take pills) required a 20 minute nap afterward. Walking up the stairs to login at work took a few minutes of pause at the top. Invalid-ness sucks when you're used to doing your own thing, I'm not gonna lie. But this is temporary, and I'm 1/2 way through my first 4 cycles. Tonight my family is doing Christmas dinner and presents and stuff (we had important people out of town last week) and I'm excited I'll be able to taste fancy food...and see what chemo makes weird.

A Booby Prize

Wednesday was a day of doctors. I suppose I should be getting used to that, but so far I haven't. My surgical follow up was exactly as planned, except for getting a LOOK and a very snarky "and now you're sore, AREN'T YOU" comment from the surgeon for shoveling that morning. Yeah yeah. Lesson learned. Sadly, even though I'm healing fine and all my franken-ness is now stitch-free, the inside isn't fully healed (hence the chastisement for shoveling, because heavy lifting/labor could tear scar tissue and cause issues). Therefore, he said wait until after the new year to go back to kickboxing. This was Wednesday morning, before that last test came back and before I met my Oncologist. We'll get back to that in a minute.

Related: a friend of mine apparently objects to "Frankenboob" not because it's rude, nor because it's inaccurate (after all, Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster), but because it does't "roll off the tongue in a poetic way". I have the best mental image of him testing, out loud, each different technical and slang term for every part of a breast to find the right combo(he assures me that's exactly what happened while stuck in traffic the other day). "Frankenboob" will now be "Frankenknocker". FK for short, which works for me on multiple levels. 

It DOES sounds more lyrical. I have no argument.

Wednesday afternoon I met my team at MN Oncology. It's ridiculous that FK has a team.

My Oncologist is also very kind and direct, a quality I appreciate since she had less than stellar news. The two tumors I had removed were sent to a lab in California for something called an Oncotype test. Essentially it's a genetic test done on the tumor itself, which is then plugged into a statistical database that's been built over however many decades of cancer research of my particular type to spit out a percentage of likelihood my cancer would come back anywhere in the body. The tumor originally found on my mammogram isn't a big deal: it's grade 1 (slow growing, not aggressive). That littler one though, that's the mean one. Grade 3 is more aggressive: my risk factor is too high.

So. I will have a port put into my chest sometime next week and get an electrocardiogram on my heart sometime in the next two weeks (did you know one of the awesome side effects for chemo can be heart damage? I didn't either.) and on the 16th I'll start five months of chemo (assuming, of course, that everything goes according to plan, which honestly hasn't happened since I went in for a routine mammogram). Radiation will start after chemo. There isn't currently any detectable cancer in my body, just to be clear: the intent of this round of treatment is to kill anything that's too small to detect so it doesn't come back anywhere else (that's what metastatic means - breast cancer with a wandering streak).

There's a door prize for getting told you're starting chemo in a couple of weeks. A nurse's assistant came in to give me a large 3 ring binder full of information, a nice clear list of which drugs are administered when, the side effects, and when I should call the office if side effects are bad. Along with the binder she awkwardly handed me a thermometer, like she KNEW it's ridiculous. But since three different kinds of fun poison will be dribbled in the port (each session will be a couple hours) and the drugs will kill off good cells and bad ones, my immune system will be sad and slow. Monitoring for fever will be a thing, and apparently adults don't usually have a thermometer at home, so they give everyone one when treatment starts.

Aren't I just a barrel of fun these days? Yeah, I think so too.

Kickboxing is off until next fall at the earliest (I've sadly already texted the head instructor in Burnsville to ask if we can put my membership on hold or if I should just start over, because it's too expensive to just let it sit and bill every month for that long). Honestly I'm pretty pissed about that.

I won't be able to shovel my own driveway this winter after all (looking into snow removal services now). I'm pissed about that too, for the expense and the inconvenience. However, I may not be so pissed about it when I don't have to bundle up and slide down my driveway. We'll see.

The rest I don't know about yet. Not everyone has the same side effects, but I plan for the worst and hope for better. Christmas/Yule stuff will depend entirely on how I react to treatment, which is every other week starting the 16th for two months, then weekly for three more months.

The big question here is will I rock the Telly Savalas look, or will I wig out...I don't know that yet either.

I suppose I could cancel the appointment I have for a haircut in December, though.

Bye Francis (This post is not safe for work or pretty much any other respectable sensibility.)

I've started and deleted this post approximately 700 bazillion times in the past few weeks, as doctors have poked and prodded (oops, sorry about that second stick, the one that went into the muscle!) and set new appointments and "just check to be sure everything is ok" tests have been scheduled and endured. Even now, I've cut 90% of this post, because it's not useful or too angry or too sad, and because it will inevitably be taken to heart by the wrong people, and because I'm tired of the casual solutioners trying to solution shit that doesn't actually help at all. It's amazing how careful I've learned to be in a few weeks about saying the right thing to avoid being inconvenient or making anyone else uncomfortable. 

Example: the Deadpool clip in this post is extremely violent. There. You are warned. 

I'm so goddamned tired of feeling.

I'm angry as fuck that the rest of my life will have a specter of "what if it's back" every time I go to what used to be a normal checkup. I'm angry I will pretty certainly have to go on a hormone blocker for the next 5-10 years.  A demon of a pill with pretty awful side effects that may or may not get me, but will almost assuredly cause early menopause and removes yet more choices I still had about my body and my life. I'm angry and sad that until I know my staging and statistical likelihood of recurrence AFTER I know my treatment plan, I have to recognize that I may not see my niece and nephews graduate. 

I'm anxious and terrified about tomorrow, even though I know every step of what's going to happen. What if they don't get it all? What if the results are worst possible and I have to have chemo or my staging is more immediately bad? What if I pee my pants during surgery? What if I react adversely to the anesthesia? What if I'm one of those creepy people who wake up in the middle of the procedure, paralyzed and feeling EVERYTHING? What if I don't recover fast enough? What if I die on the table? 

Why not put it out of my head and focus on the positive? I suppose in the scheme of things I'm incredibly lucky. I have the same cancer 80% of breast-cancer-havers have. Francis was discovered ridiculously early and his evil, more aggressive sidekick was discovered because I decided the indignities of an MRI aren't as bad as not knowing. My ultrasound tech is an amazing woman who made certain she found the sidekick so we could biopsy it and get that little bastard included in the lumpectomy tomorrow, even though it's 0.6cm. I don't have stage IV double mastectomy 6 months to live cancer: that part my medical team seems quite sure of, and that's unbelievably lucky. 

Yeah. That didn't do shit. Maybe tomorrow night it'll help, or maybe the anesthesia will leave me loopy and tired enough that I don't care. Tonight, when I'm getting ready to take the first of two special-surgery-soap showers and my dog is somewhere else and I'm supposed to sleep (yeah right), positive is worthless. 

I actually want to learn the trick to putting worst case scenarios out of my mind without the benefit of meditation (which I can and DO regularly do). Because that's not how my mind works. 

In order to even set foot in the building, and give up all that control and just let some stranger knock me out and cut me open, I HAVE to decide when I'm capable of deciding and communicating where my boys will go if things went bad. I HAVE to have a letter written and in my desk giving instructions to the few people with keys to my house. Just in case. Is that morbid? Maybe, but my outlook on life has been "prepare for the worst and see what happens" for as long as I can remember.

It makes me feel slightly better to know I won't leave them to shelters or have any arguing over what happens in my house, because I have so little control over what's going on. I hate it with every breath in this body that betrayed me. 

It's only been, what, 6 weeks? I'm already so fucking tired. 

Angry will get me through, if I can be angry enough to blow terrified and sad aside for a while. 

Carrie Fisher said: stay afraid, but do it anyway. 

So fuck you, Francis. I don't want to be a hero: I just want you both gone. 

Book Review: Picture Perfect Cowboy by Tiffany Reisz

Retired bull rider Jason Waters is about as tightly wound and uncomfortable as a cowboy can be. He fits every surface assumption about a rodeo athlete more accustomed to thousand pound pissed off animals than people: lean, quiet, calm, conservative, and unfailingly polite. Unfortunately for Jason (and luckily for us), a promise to a fellow rodeo buddy puts Jason in the position of posing naked for a hot-rodeo-boys calendar: a calendar Simone Levine is shooting. Simone's unique combination of artistic mischief and harmlessness cuts through the Jason's polite shield, and he unexpectedly reveals a secret he's carried for years. And so they begin with a nude photo shoot and a naked confession.

One of my favorite things about Tiffany Reisz's work is the way she takes a familiar romance novel premise and twists it down excellently unexpected paths. Picture Perfect Cowboy occurs in the Original Sinners universe, which generally guarantees a certain level of character depth (oh yes, that pun is intended) as well as varying levels of smut. This story doesn't disappoint, as it turns out Jason is terrified his own predilections make him a terrible and depraved man. Simone, on the other hand, is an occasional professional at King's NY club and a personal friend of Mistress Nora. Who better to help Jason  relax and be who he is, by proving that a little depravity doesn't make him a bad guy?

Again, the romance theme of the "good woman is all a rake needs to be reformed" is revised to a more modern and entertainingly smutty adventure. Reisz doesn't skimp on the varying erotic scenes. True to form, some are pure sexiness while some skate the edge of downright uncomfortable, and there's really no predicting which scenes will have either effect on any reader. If you aren't an expert on spanking after this, you weren't paying attention.

What's really interesting in this story is Jason's evolution, both in emotional growth and technical skill. I love that Reisz always delves into the how/why of a character's kinks, and though some of the motivating factors can be judged as awful (through no fault of Jason's own), the end result is an acceptance without judgment of his needs as an adult. Simone (with a little help from Nora and Soren) actively encourages Jason to accept himself and navigate the twisty ethical and emotional effects of desires he's been ashamed of as morally terrible due to his upbringing.

In addition to his internal struggle, relationship conflicts arise as outside parties are introduced to Jason and Simone's private world, and the vast lifestyle differences between a Kentucky horse rancher and a New York professional kinkster interfere. Picture Perfect Cowboy is a lot of relationship packed into a pretty short package. Tiffany Reisz covers both traditional romance novel issues as well as BDSM kink with the same excellent style in the other Sinners books.

My only complaint is the traditional market length of this story necessarily leaves little room for more, and I wanted more. The best possible danger of writing is convincing readers the characters are real people you want to hang out with: this is an absolute success. I hope this becomes a bit of a series since at least one other character has some clear Sinner potential, because I thoroughly enjoyed Simone and Jason's love story. Also, I'm not going to lie, I'd love to find out how Jason and Griffin get along.

Picture Perfect Cowboy by Tiffany Reisz is available on November 5th in hardcover and ebook from 8th Circle Press.
Picture Perfect Cowboy on Amazon

More Things Ragnar Ate and Drunk Walrus Impersonations. These Are Unrelated.

Once in a while, I re-up a subscription to one of those monthly boxes of random fun stuff, just because who doesn't like getting a box of something NOT bills in the mail? 

This month, it was a witchybox full of various pagan bits and pieces (um, let's be clear I mean bits and pieces of things that are often associated with witches and pagans, not bits and pieces OF a pagan...that'd be gross, and way messier than this box turned out to be). 

Ragnar apparently thought the box smelled fascinating. Therefore, Ragnar ripped the box apart in the middle of my office floor when I was in another room. 

Interestingly, there was some incense, some bath salts (the sort for bathing in, not the sort that turn a person into a face-eating zombie), a candle or two, a set of Tarot Cards...and the ONLY thing he destroyed was the box the cards came in. My wall-eating, shoe-devouring, garbage destroying dog OPENED the jar of bath salt and very carefully didn't eat any, and left everything else alone. 

I'm fairly certain that box came with some sort of anti-dog-destruction spell, and it seems to be persistent. 

Last night I used some of the salts. I usually leave the bathroom door open a little so they don't scratch at it when I'm in a bath, and Ragar slammed his way enthusiastically into the room per usual. Then he stopped, all four legs went completely stiff, his hackles went up just a little, and he stared in horrified disbelief. Seriously, his message "WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" was crystal clear, and hilarious. He wouldn't come near the bathtub, and jumped back if I moved the water. He made a ridiculous whine/growl noise and ran out of the room. 

You guys, I'm not kidding: he went to get Angus. My dog tattled on me for being in the bathtub, and brought the actual ruler of the household in to check. Ragnar stayed over a foot away from the tub while Angus jumped on the side, licked my knee, batted the water a little, and settled there to watch floating lavender bits. It's possible he stuck his face in the water and sneezed. I was laughing too hard to be certain. 

Ragnar continued his protest by lying on the bathroom floor and keeping both eyes on us, clearly worried the horrible water monster would kill us both. He grumbled like an old man for the entire time. 

He also ate both of my last two pairs of sunglasses recently: he gets zero sympathy. 

In other news, I'm taking my open-water scuba diving certification dives this weekend. In order to do said dives, I'm required to go to the scuba shop and try on wetsuits (because it's September in MN and lakes are starting to cool off, especially at 20 feet down). 

Have you ever tried on a wetsuit? I mean the 7mm version, not the cute skinny 3mm half suits used for warm weather/warm water stuff. Have you ever tried to pull on a pair of tights that REFUSE to allow you to pull them all the way up so the crotch is, well, in the crotch? It's infinitely harder to do when the fucking tights are weird rubbery material that squishes under your fingers and doesn't move much. 

WHO INVENTED THIS FRESH HELL? Seriously, I'd like to put the wetsuit creator in the same room as the dipshit who invented thong underwear or control-top pantyhose and beat them all with something humiliating. Like a giant dildo. 

I'm 6' tall, and I'm not one of those willowy thin tall chicks. Wrangling my buns into that thing involved flailing, heavy breathing, sweating, swearing, and eventually falling over like a damn drunk walrus. And having dropped off my yoga practice and not having any natural contortionist ability, I had to leave the dressing room and get help to zip it up. Since I wasn't actually GOING diving, I wasn't in a swimsuit - awesome. 

I have to do this tomorrow and Sunday in front of people...if I don't cause the rest of the divers to fall overboard and drown from laughing too hard, I deserve a goddamned medal. 

The Red: An Erotic Fantasy by Tiffany Reisz (Spoiler-Free Review)

"Art should be dangerous, you know. It should say something to society that society doesn't want to hear. Do you know what the opposite of art is? Propaganda." -  The Red

This review is safe for work. The book isn't.

Mona Lisa St. James made a deathbed promise to her mother, vowing to keep their struggling little art gallery open "at all costs." Months later, she's about to fail the promise and just desperate enough to take up the mysterious Malcolm's (no last name) shockingly straightforward offer: become his, on demand, for the next twelve months and make enough money to save her business. Over the next year, Mona finds out the exact cost of keeping that promise, in explicit detail, and discovers some fascinating secrets about her odd lover and his artwork-themed demands.

I often recommend Ms. Reisz's novels because she doesn't write simple smut (that's right: she writes complicated smut), or syrupy romance, and The Red lives up to my expectations. I love Reisz's work for the depth of character and fascinating navigation through complicated and taboo sexual situations. The underpinnings of the story is an exploration of Mona's value, of her own sense of self-worth that becomes stronger and more pronounced as her boundaries are pushed, and her discovery of what she really wants. It's downright voyeuristically compelling, watching Mona's thoughts and actions evolve with each new level of debauchery.

Oh my God, the debauchery. Make no mistake: this is definitely a Tiffany Reisz erotic novel.
WOW. ZA.

Seriously well written, unapologetic lust exists between those covers. I tossed sleep aside to finish it in a night, and this book is worth it, although I may never look at a bottle of water the same way again. From an erotica perspective, The Red has at least one kink that will appeal to you and at least one that will make you terribly uncomfortable. I know what you're thinking, and I definitely don't mean the "blushing and you hope no one notices because WHY are you reading this in public" sort of uncomfortable.

I mean the uncomfortable where you're certain this particular kink shouldn't be so arousing because it's so dirty, but you're turned on anyway. You'll think about it for days afterward and read it again, and you'll want to recommend it to friends but worry they'll figure out that scene worked for you. THAT sort of uncomfortable.

Of course, part of the fun of reading The Red is discovering which encounters fall under which category for you.

The Red is a standalone novel, available on July 11th, 2017 in paperback and e-formats (Kindle is available for pre-order). If you enjoyed her Original Sinners series I don't have to recommend this one, because you already know exactly why you'll love this book. If you're new to Ms. Reisz's work, I highly recommend picking up The Red as soon as you can: it's an excellent mix of erotica and dominant/submissive dynamics, with a hint of the supernatural for flavor.

The Red is definitely exactly the right sort of dangerous art.

It Must Be Wednesday - Yahoo Thinks I'm a Rich Frat Boy

Today's Spamalicious Hump Day offerings from Yahoo include eight offers of various sorts of encounter with chicks I don't know. 

I deleted two of them for offering explicit acts...not because I'm a prude: because I probably don't want people finding my blog as a search result for them. Sigh. 

Also, can I just say, Stiffler was 1999. 1999!! 18 years ago...shouldn't "MILF" have gone out of style by now? What the hell?  

Oh my god, I graduated college 18 years ago. I need more coffee for this shit. 

So, multi-aged various nationalities offering *ahem* hot evenings.
Dear Jenny M, no thanks but good luck with your boyfriend.
No, generalized nameless "naked girls", I sure don't remember you, and based on your email subject line you'd think I WOULD. Therefore, pretty sure you have the wrong girl here.

Extended Stay hotel (and apparently I own a timeshare somewhere: Ryan wants to buy it. Fuck you Ryan, I'm not giving up my sweet escape space for hot encounters with people I don't remember.)

Pizza.

See what I mean by wealthy frat boy as depicted in movies? The only offers missing are toga parties and beer.

Hmm. Maybe I should be flattered that Yahoo thinks I'm in my twenties?

Be Careful What You Ask For?

Every once in a while, people who aren't COMPLETELY horrified at the stuff I think up wonder where the hell I get some of my story ideas. I had a nifty example today...


While sitting in the girl-doctor's office waiting room, no less (before being mildly annoyed that my appointment was being cancelled via phone while I was in line to check in at the reception desk...sigh), the following thoughts strung themselves together in my brainpan and swirled around awhile.


1) Salt was a much sought-after item in ancient times, and could be quite expensive (it was a serious moneymaker for empires to own salt mines).


2) MANY ancient religious practices and beliefs included acceptance and regular interaction with the supernatural. Ghosts, demons, djinn, fairies, sirens/mermaids, etc.


2) Salt, in ritual, is used for protection against malevolent supernatural/spiritual activity. This is not limited to neo-pagan practices: superstitious people still fling salt over their left shoulder if it's been spilled, to ward off bad luck.


SO...

• If salt was relatively scarce outside of coastal areas or next to salt deposits AND used specifically for warding off demonic possessions, evil ghostly attacks, etc., did stuff like the Exorcist happen more often because every household didn't have salt available for protections?
• Does that mean wealthy societies now who have salt on the table every day are protected from said attacks?
• If they ARE...would an apocalypse (zombie or otherwise) result in an increase in possessions/activity as well?

And so, my brain decided that post-apocalyptic survivors would have to deal with demons and the like even within their protections unless they happen to have someone in their new society who can banish and protect them all. And what would THAT look like?


Yeah. That's the shit my head comes up with when I'm bored. Be glad you don't live in here people: it's a weird crowded space...


I write to make room.

Why I Can't Ever Attend the Kentucky Derby

I watch the Triple Crown every year...from the no-hat-required, jeans-friendly couch in my house. My family texts off and on all day before the Kentucky Derby: after all, for those of us in Minnesota the Derby is the last sign that winter is truly over, because horse racing season has begun. It's similar to Winter/Construction being the two seasons up here, except Race season is far less annoying traffic-wise.

Anyway, we make fun of the horrendous outfits (OH MY GOD Rutledge, really? How far the mighty Top Gear host hath fallen), the hats that could apply for their own zip code and MUST require a gallon of mint juleps just to step out the door (assuming a head that huge could get through a doorway), and the host (who apparently stole life-size My Little Pony hair to create that cotton candy pink thing on his head).

I know it sounds mean, but if you're going to go to a multi-million dollar event wearing a hat that literally looks like you stole it from Strawberry Shortcake and be on camera, I have no sympathy.

This year, we discovered it's possible I need a new prescription for my glasses.
ACTUAL horse's name: DESTIN.
What I saw: DESITIN (for those of you without spawn or diaper-changing duties EVER in your life, Desitin is a baby butt cream).

I'm not kidding, the following texts flew from LA to Duluth, MN, to Minneapolis yesterday:

Me: That horse Destin? I keep seeing "Desitin instead and I think his name is BUTT CREAM.
Me: GO BUTT CREAM!
Mom: Run your butt off!!
Aunt: RUN BUTT CREAM RUN!
Aunt: What # was Butt Cream??

Race happens (NO TEXTING DURING THE RACE!)

Aunt: Poor Butt Cream came up from the rear...butt lost.*
Mom: ROFL
Aunt: Butt Creme will get it in the end.

And that's why I can't ever go the Kentucky Derby in real life. 

*For the record, Destin kicked himself into serious high gear on the final stretch and came from the back of the pack to 6th.
Go Butt Cream!

Dear porn surfers: I bet THIS wasn't what you were looking for when you googled "butt cream" and, again, NO SYMPATHY. Mwahahahaha.

Eyesockets and Pee-Batteries (alternatively titled: WTF Headlines)

Today's most fabulous headlines from various news sources:


Scientists Have Created A Fuel Cell That Runs On Pee - I suppose I should be glad it doesn't run on farts. Does it have to be human pee? 


Yes, You Can Rent Out Your Eye Socket For Money - Well...hmm. Amusingly, this headline was immediately beneath the pee-cell article. I really can't think of a number high enough to rent out my eye socket for pee. More importantly, if you're renting out the eye socket space WHERE DOES THE CURRENT OCCUPANT GO? Since it's a socket, would item requiring the space plug in? Are we headed toward a line of people with removable eyeballs sitting at a charging bar in the airport before their plane takes off, plugging a cord into their faces? What if you unplug and put the WRONG EYE back in? "Oh, I'm so sorry, I grabbed your eye by mistake!"


Can't you just SEE the possible romantic-comedy-esque engagement stories that start "well, we met when I accidentally plugged her eye in my socket..."


Oh yeah people, I TOTALLY WENT THERE. You're welcome. For the images AND the pun.


Secret Lives Of Monkey Midwives - Dear Animal Planet: I have a proposition for a new reality show...


Billions of Cicadas Will Soon Rise From The Earth, Have Sex, And Die - Isn't that all any of us do, just on a longer time scale? Watch out for Cicada Killers - they'll totally ruin the plan for either bugs OR people's sex lives. If they ruin people's sex life with bugs, I don't want to know anything about it, and it's time now to imagine less horrifying images. Like rentable eye sockets.


EMA #GreenMySchool Program Is Starting Something Big - So...the headline author doesn't know what "EMA" means in either inappropriate slang OR text language. Obviously, my friends are of the unsavory variety who do NOT mean "email" with EMA. Maybe that just means the author has a less-guttery mind than me...I'm not sure if I should feel sorry for him or be really impressed.

Random Weird and Adolescent Humor

I have no point in this post, other than to share a thing or five I noticed today that weirded me out.


First, let's talk about sperm whales. Because the tale of the Essex is now in theaters and of course the whale is the villain. My thoughts about the story of the Essex aren't about whale rights or whaling or Moby Dick...


No, I was struck by the utter ridiculousness of the name.


What the fuck. I mean, really, what the actual fuck?


What dumbass decided a sea creature bigger than the average ship looked/sounded (let's not go into the other senses, shall we?) like SPERM* of all things? I have absolutely no decent reason for why this plagued my brainpan today, but it did, and I had to find out. Thankfully, Google is there to help with burning questions about male ejaculate, even as pertains to whale names.


VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: when Googling, be certain you include "whale" in the description. Even so, it's better not to Google at work. Learn from my mistakes, and let's all hope I'm not fired, ok?



*As it turns out, whalers really did think the whale's forehead was full of sperm. In reality, it's filled with some weird waxy substance that probably looks ridiculously gross.


Moving on.


Groupon...which is not quite as random a transition as it seems. I get email ads from them regularly, so while I was re-Googling sperm whales on my phone (and thus avoiding the potential firing offense of search results for "sperm" anything) I got mail. It makes sense to me.


But really, there are things I find baffling to sell at their discounts. Such as:


Driving a tank - advertised at 50% off, which I assume means 50% off the price, not that you get to drive 50% of the tank. Driving 50% of a tank seems...unbalanced, somehow, doesn't it?


Boudoir Photography - OBVIOUSLY discounted because there's no amount of airbrushing or photo-shopping that would make me look anywhere close to the mannequin Barbie doll Victoria's secret model in the ad pics. And truly, getting into some of those positions seems dangerous as hell...how would I go back to work if my leg gets stuck...never mind.


Acupuncture - Because, for anything remotely medical OF COURSE I feel comfortable with the bottom of the barrel pricing.


Botox - WHAT THE HELL?? If you're going to inject botulism into your FACE, do you really want the bargain basement place to do it?


Breast Implants* - See Botulism botox injections...bargain basement boobies. REALLY??


*I am not kidding. I have indeed seen implants and other plastic surgery listed on Groupon.

The Old Ones...or...Why I Shouldn't Be Allowed In Public

This should be filed under "yup, she's disturbed and thinks weird dark things" and you're welcome to ignore this post if horror isn't your gig. Or horror humor. Or really fucked up thought processes resulting in inappropriate innuendo. 

Yes, yes, I know it's early to be thinking about Poe and Lovecraft...it's still August, after all. But this week it's been cold enough at night to actually sleep under the covers AND Renaissance Festival started, so I'm in autumn mood. 

Anyway. 

I saw some horror art today that was Lovecraftian in nature: black tentacles reaching out of a center point, surrounded by human skulls-and-spines like some disturbing pinwheel of death. It was creepily beautiful, if you can wrap your mind around those two words working together. 

I got to thinking...humans are ever so full of ourselves as a species, even in horror. 

Let's imagine for one second that the Old Ones, Cthulhu and the rest, existed and are indeed just waiting out there in deep space for Hellboy or some foolish person to open a portal so they can come back. Let's imagine Leviathan (Biblical) or Jormungandr (Norse) have been hanging out in the depths of the ocean, encompassing the world, for millennia. 

Imagine what immortality might be like: where anything with a short life span matters less over time because, well, you can always get another one. Seriously, why would they give a hoot about humans at all? 

Humans, for example, live an average of 75 - 100 years. Dogs live an average of 10. Ants live an average of 45 - 60 DAYS. Do we care when a valued pet dies? I certainly hope so. Do we care when an ant dies? Um, speaking for myself here I have to say no, I really don't. 

Do I NOTICE when I have ants? Sure do: and I go about exterminating them so my house is clean. Do I make a point of saving ant skeletons (or exoskeletons, in their case) with which I terrify them and torture their existence? Indeed I don't give their psyches that much thought at all. I suppose were I Buddhist that would make me a bad one...and to be fair I don't mess with anthills outside (I figure that's their space, as long as they aren't fire ants in my yard). 

I have a point.

Given our size, our life span, and our penchant for colonizing every inch of space on this planet, how could humans not be considered the equivalent to ants to The Old Ones? 

Why would Cthulhu bother terrorizing ants, creating a pit of despair lined with bony dead human trophies? Even ant serial killers (not serial killers who ARE ants: that's just silly. I'm thinking the creeps who like to use magnifying glasses and sun to burn the little dudes to death in some disturbing version of a Greek Death Ray) don't stack up the dead anty bits in warning to other ants. 

The pinwheel of death art was neat, but it's a little ridiculous: only a human would create something like that to psychologically affect another human. The need to be FEARED implies a need to be recognized and valued (positively or negatively) by those who fear you: the terrorizer's value of the terrorized's opinion. Incitement of fear response is a defense against something which could potentially harm or kill: a wolf doesn't fear a rabbit and so doesn't make a point of threatening a rabbit. A wolf can (not always, but there is capability) fear a human, and so bristles and growls, attempting through incitement of fear to get the human to back the fuck off. 

Of course, it can be argued that they are kill trophies. Like a serial killer, or an interstellar Predator hunter. You know, like deer heads on the wall for decoration? Yeah, I don't get that either, but some people like it. Trophy decoration implies an opinion of the animal involved. Hanging a deer head on the wall is an advertisement that the hunter overcame something difficult to hunt, right, at least theoretically? Please let me be clear: I DON'T LIKE trophy hunting. Never have. I don't get it: eating the deer meat should be enough in my mind, but whatever. The POINT is that there's some psychological reason for displaying hunting trophies which implies the creature's importance to the hunter on some level...and that I've never seen an ant head or squirrel on anyone's man-cave wall. 

I'm not saying that, if the Old Ones saw humanity as ants, they couldn't or wouldn't exterminate. I mean, for all I know they ARE Daleks. I'm saying it's ridiculous to think they'd bother with psychological warfare, being both immortal and presumably all powerful (or, at least, so much more powerful we are essentially unable to conceive of the limits). 

And so, the idea that an ancient evil god imprisoned in space for a bazillion years, such as Cthulhu, has a collection of human bits either as kill trophies OR as instruments of terror seems...well it just seems somewhat unlikely. 

Now I'm seriously wondering if ants have Lovecraftian style horror stories about humans. "Boots On The Ground, and Other Terrifying Tales" to be read in short story form, because hello: 60 day life span. 

Also, animals with longer life spans than us, which would potentially be more of a pet to Cthulhu than we are: Galapagos Tortoise (190 years). Bowhead Whale (200 - 245 years), Greenland Sharks (190 years), Koi (200 years), Ocean Quahog Clam (400 - 550 years). Obviously, I make no comment on the intellectual capacity of any of them...what does a clam think about for 500 years? 

Oh dear. 

THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT BY CLAM. 

Mmm...SPAM.

You guys, my Spam adventures (not to be confused with SPAM) have expanded to Facebook messages!


Dear  REDACTED ,

I am very sorry for distracting your attention,I am Barrister Patrick Lawson,personal attorney to my Late Client Mr.A. REDACTED,a national of your country, Who died and left some huge amount of money  with a bank here in my Country Lome-Togo, valued at US$18.5 million dollars. I have contacted you to assist me get this money transferred into your bank account for our mutual benefit.Since you bear the same last name and also a national of your Country.

Kindly get back to me With the following information through my private email for more clarification. ( patricklawsonlegalchambers@hotmail.com )

Full name................
Age...............
private number.........
Your Fax Number........
private email....
Occupation........

Faithfully Yours

Barrister Patrick Lawson
Phone. +228

You'll note I left this super-spammer's deets even though I took out stuff like my last name. I'm REALLY amused that the message didn't even bother getting my full name from FB (JUST my last name).

Barrister Patrick Lawson, if you're out there somewhere...I think not, dude. Really, is there ANYONE stupid enough to fall for this crap?

What happens if all of, say, Twitter emailed this dude and asked for his bank account info to transfer $18m to him? Would he be spammed out?

Could we all tell him we have cases of super tasty pork product SPAM to send to his home country if he wires us all $18m?

Disclaimer: Please do not send this dude Spam (of the edible or email/facebook variety). I shared to pass along because this stuff is ridiculous, and if you see something from the email address it's fake-o-rama.

And So, I Embrace Google's Opinion Me

Remember how everyone tells me their sex and relationship issues? Did you know my husband is moving to Texas for 11 months next year for school (I am not, for financial and practical reasons...meaning, I'd like to keep my job until I get to the point they'll let me work from home full time, I can't afford to commute between MN and TX weekly, and we'll likely move when he's done with school anyway)? Did you know back in the day (ie 2005 and earlier) I sold "Romance products" through one of those in-home party gigs?

This all goes together, I swear. 

I've decided to re-start my sex toy romance business. I need something to keep me occupied while he's in school...and you know, a way to help PAY for school. Plus, I have no shame and thoroughly encourage people to have healthy fun sex lives. I think it's important to well-being in a long-term relationship.

I won't advertise here after this post, although I may share entertaining stories here and there. After all, I have a reputation to uphold with Google Ads (because I'm lewd). But if you're interested, you can find the business on Facebook at www.facebook.com/shadowayn

My Party Gals website (for products, booking online parties, and likely some immature giggles): www.partygals.biz/shadowayn or www.tabooessentials.com/shadowayn

And finally, to coincide with the toy business I decided to pair it with an advice column: http://shadowaynlove.blogspot.com. I'd love some guest-posts there, my bloggy friends!

Are you sensing a theme? 

Back to NaNoWriMo. Because I'm clearly attempting to kill myself with all the THINGS to do.

PS: I sort of find my labeling scheme amusing today.

No, no, you're pronouncing it wrong. It's "whOOre"

So I live in the Land Spring Forgot. Let's just get that out of the way: it's April something-teen and we're in the middle of yet another "shnit" storm (that would be Husband's word for the rain/sleet/snow shit that's currently coating the ground, and more importantly the roads, in a layer of slushy icy crap). This is not a weather-bitching post. Honestly, even a former Northern Minnesotan like me is fucking sick of the weather-bitching.

No, this post is due to a Facebook comment I read today. "Mother Nature is a whore."

I could probably explain the reasons why I'm generally a very long-fused person when it comes to temper, but that's a totally different (and darker) story. Can we just agree that usually I can take a lot of verbal (and otherwise) irritants before I lose my cool. Except for a few things which irritate the fuck out of me. Here's the thing, my Facebook feed is FULL of pro-woman, anti-sexism, anti-slut-shaming posts lately. There's one going around about a principal in a high school who threatened to call a senior's college and tell them how bad her character is and maybe they should rethink her future there. Because she didn't go to the abstinence-only assembly where the speaker said (per Huffington Post) "if you're on birth control, your mother hates you."

What I find silly is when the same people who support stopping the BLATANT sexism are so often those who participate in the more subtle, pervasive sexism in our culture.

Whore.

Let's review the meaning of "whore" shall we? Thank you, www.Dictionary.com for this:

whore

/hɔr, hoʊr or, often, hʊər/ Show[hawr, hohr or, often, hoor]   noun, verb, whored, whor·ing.

noun

1. a woman who engages in promiscuous sexual intercourse, usually for money; prostitute; harlot; strumpet.

verb (used without object)

2. to act as a whore.

3. to consort with whores.

verb (used with object)

4. Obsolete . to make a whore of; corrupt; debauch.

 

So. One of the challenges of the English language is finding the right word to convey the emotional message to the reader. But this particular word is used SPECIFICALLY to express disgust in a woman's behavior.  Not a man's behavior. Only women, and only with the most demeaning intent. After all, you move further down the degradation ladder when you go from slut to whore, right?

 

Honestly, I've considered this topic before. I don't find anyone, male or female, engaging in "promiscuous sexual intercourse" as less "moral" or any less "respectable" as me. I find that particular trait to be the MOST idiotic thing to judge in a person... WHY would I care if someone is promiscuous? It is not a sign of moral weakness, no matter what the patriarchal religious tenets teach. It can be a sign of self-loathing, but not always. And I'm not going to assume I know what's going on in someone's head. Maybe they just really like sex, for crying out loud.

 

I don't care if anyone, male or female, chooses to have any sort of sexual contact for money unless they're forced into it (in which case I'd gladly . And I don't judge those who've done it because they had to (whether physically forced, emotionally forced, or financially desperate). Why would I? People do what they need to in order to survive, and not everyone's life is as fucking rosy or happy as those portrayed in the media (social or otherwise).

 

This particular comment was a "damn it, fucking snow AGAIN" frustration. But you know, on days like today, when the weather is utterly unpredictable, the ONLY reason I survive is because I have neat things available like indoor heat and grocery stores. Mother Nature could easily rip my head off, in every sense of the word.

If, as a society, we have no respect for even the natural/supernatural forces that we identify as female, are we not including sexism and contempt for the female at our most base and subconscious level? I suppose it's the Pagan-ness in me that gets irked at derogatory terms lobbed around, even though Mother Nature likely doesn't give a hoot what any of us think.

Plus, honestly, as a Pagan I'm pretty sure I wouldn't call any force in the world capable of burying me in any sort of natural disaster a derogatory term.

Dude, you JUST NEVER KNOW.

 

Ok so most of this post was a feminist rant. It's true. If you're going to ignore all the other things I said, at least pronounce the word the fun way. I mean really, using a ridiculous word deserves a ridiculous pronunciation, and for that I refer you to Captains William F. Call and Augustus McRae in Lonesome Dove... who say "whoore" (with the "oo" in the middle) as fact and in appreciation.

If whoore doesn't do it for you, try "Harlot" or "strumpet." Expand your insult ability: both are much more colorful words if you're going to go all Biblically judgmental on any female's sexual proclivities just because you're not happy with her behavior.

To contrast, the best weather-bitching I've seen all week was "everyone likes to sleep in once in a while. But I think it's time to get Mother Nature an alarm clock."

Seriously, Lady...it's cold here and I'm really tired of ice. I know you forgot about Minnesota, but could you send Spring now?

UPDATED: It's like a divining rod for cosmic lost socks...

I was informed this afternoon that the 'lady occultist' in the Duluth Skywalk NOW offers "paranormal investigation" along with "soul retrieval."

I am thoroughly intrigued.


How exactly does one retrieve a soul?

Perhaps more importantly, how exactly does one LOSE* a soul? Is it like doing the laundry and the washer/dryer eats a sock? "Oops, I misplaced my soul. Crap, I don't remember which drawer it's in."

Does she have a soul-sniffer-outer of some sort?

A magnet-tipped extendo-soul-catching-rod (thanks Michael, for that one...excellent imagery).

Perhaps a specially trained dog (like the drug/bomb sniffing dogs, only for souls)? 




Golden SOUL Retriever

 Good lord, how does one TRAIN a soul-sniffer to sniff out lost souls? What sort of treats (Soul Biscuits) are required to get a dog to recognize a misplaced soul versus an intact soul? (This is Thor, my soul-sniffing-superdog!)

What if the soul is in pieces? Do you need a soul-divining-rod, like dowsing for water? What sort of material is required for accurate soul dowsing and retrieval? Is it something like metal detector-ing (in which case, do will I be wandering the Earth with a supply of batteries and earmuffs, swinging a soul detector over everything)?

How do I know the retrieved soul is mine? I don't want someone ELSE'S lost soul. What if the missing pieces aren't very nice, after all? I'll stick with my own bits, thanks.

Could it show up in a random un-returned library book or box of junk you intended to donate to Goodwill but forgot?

Does missing your soul make you a vampire? If so, do you magically turn into Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (OMG there's a WIKI for Buffy)?

Can I request changing to Eric Northman from True Blood instead? He's way more fun and less broody.

I'm not even going to go the Evil Dead "I'll swallow your soul" route, because that's just creepy.

Perhaps the biggest question: is there a cosmic dryer somewhere with a secret stash of souls??

UPDATE: Per a commentor on Facebook, "every new freckle is someone's trapped soul."

What the FUCK, people? Seriously, I can't even tell you just how disturbing that concept is, and now every time I acquire a new random freckle I'll wonder if the Soul Retriever can remove it...and give it back to the original owner, of course.
*Disclaimer: while  I find my own silliness entertaining I feel some responsibility to put some non-snarky info out there. So, here's what I found locally on the concept of Soul Retrieval, which I must admit is also intriguing.   I'm not intrigued enough to pay for someone to find pieces of my soul, but hey, to each his/her own. Don't yell at me.

Dude. Really. You should ride that ride.

In a surreal afternoon event, I've had a quote a friend said to me two years ago at Renaissance Festival running maddeningly hilarious circles through my head.

A group of us took the day off one particularly pleasing afternoon to wander like idiots and drink ourselves silly. Indeed, mission accomplished for Husband and the other friends involved. I opted to drive because I'm a compassionate goddess of fun a fucking lightweight who gets horrifically debilitating hangovers. Therefore, I was titled Wrangler of Drunks for the day.

And it was fabulously entertaining...I'm not actually being snarky. Husband and two friends, H and B (both former security ociffers) ran stumbled around the festival, harassing participants/entertainers/dogs/random trees and having a grand time. I followed at a safe distance (so I wouldn't trip one of them for entertainment purposes by accident.

Ultimately, we connected with another former security dude...FUCK this gets confusing without names. Let's call him Z (whom we all adore in all his zombie-loving, pink bathrobe wearing, chocolate fountain ruining glory) with whom H had previously tangled. Apparently said tangling was...quite satisfactory.

She insisted that I NEED to ride that ride.  It became a thing between the four of us, and for some reason all day today my brainpan has had "seriously Jess, you should ride that ride" bouncing around.

I am amused.

If that isn't enough entertainment: Now Read These:

Wanderlust Guide: Childhood Birthday at Sybaris Pool Suites Hilarious. Enough said.

Superbetsy: How the "meme" started. I don't agree with the aftereffects of eating bacon, but the rest is pretty damn spot on. And funny as hell.

Whorrified: Because I Would Give My Eye Teeth To See That Prenup Oh...lordy. "Hugh Hefner, aged two hundred eleventy..."

Nah, 4th Graders Are Ok...

Posted on Facebook today: Seriously people, I don't dislike children!!

But I'm still amused.

I have OPK (Other People's Kids) in that 2nd - 6th grade range, and I have to say I greatly enjoy them in general. They're balancing on this fantastic edge of "I want to be cool, so I'm attempting smart-ass-ery" and "I'm still a kid who's totally entertained by cartoons, still likes my teddy bear and Mom, and is easily entertained by furniture forts."

Recently one of my favorite kids in the universe turned 15...and got her driver's permit. THAT horrifies me. Not enough to lynch 9th graders though...even they're still generally ok in my book.