I Got Nothing. Notta. Zip. Zilch. Zero.

Before I begin, let me first apologize to my high school composition teacher. I realize proper English is "I have nothing" not "I got nothing." But if you are going to circle that phrase in red ink, then you must also circle the made-up word "notta" that I used in the title as well. However, before your pen goes on a whirlwind of i-dotting, t-crossing, circling, underlining, crossing out and the insertion of those little condescending carrot marks that indicate that I'm a dumbass and I should have said this or that instead of what I originally wrote, let me stop you. Let me ask you to take a little pity on the grammatically incorrect and ignorant, rambling fool that I am. There will be plenty of time to rip me apart on my term paper, but for today and for just this one time, have a little heart. Spare me the wrath of your red ink and lend me your sympathetic ear. Today, as much as it pains you to hear, I care not about my spelling or poor grammar. Improper sentence structure, misplaced punctuation, and the confusion of past and present tense does not matter to me right now. Because unlike my usual obsessive compulsive editing and re-editing, striving for perfect but forever failing writing style...I'm just going to get it all out. Get it all down on paper so it's no longer inside of me, haunting me. I'm going to write like no one is reading, because it's much more freeing that way. If that is too much for you to bear and your hand begins to tremble and itch with red ink fever, then look away now.

You may recall this recent post, "Giving A Toast Isn’t Hard, It’s Composing It That’s Hard!" And now with my sister's big wedding day fast approaching, I am still speechless! There is only 5 short days left and I have yet to write a single word on paper! I'm starting to really freak out now. It's crunch time, the pressure is on and I'm failing miserably. Was that a figment of my imagination or did I used to be fairly decent with words? Where is the writer within me? He has vanished without notice and without a trace. In his midst, he has left this shell of a man. A man that lacks the flowery prose needed to compile a best man speech. Some best man he is!

Perhaps a freelance writer I could never be. I seem to crack under writing pressure. This is a true test with a deadline just around the corner and I got nothing. Notta. Zip. Zilch. Zero. My long standing love affair with pen and paper has ended. Yes, the honeymoon is officially over. The joy of writing has morphed into a deep, ugly hatred of mine for the written word. As of right now, our relationship is bitter and vile.

At this moment, all I am going on is hope and a prayer, literally. I'm hoping something will come to me and I'm praying it does! Although I've NEVER drawn such a blank like this before in my entire life. Without a doubt, this is the most extreme case of writer's block I have ever known. I wish it was a stranger or mine, but lately it's been like a best friend. Well, an enemy is more like it. It creeps up on me late at night when I lay my head down to sleep and it penetrates my mind everyday when someone asks me how the best man speech is coming along. It's NOT coming along. That's the problem! Ugh! The frustration overwhelms me. I want to scream and pound my forehead on the mahogany desk in front of me. Actually, I have smacked my head on the desk in hopes it would jar my brain into some aw-inspiring thought I could jot down in Shakespeare fashion.

Still, I got nothing. Notta. Zip. Zilch. Zero.

May God have mercy on my soul.

Biddy Bodies

Greetings, kiddies, from two survivors of generations of trends like preppy, hippie, punk & power suits! Join us in our journey as we navigate the vast, fabulous wasteland of Planet Fashion in a recession/depression economy. Join us (Jean, above left, & Valerie, above right) as we sample everything from Japanese to vintage to French haute couture to H&M from each other's closets, flea markets, other friends & fellow fashion afficionadas. (We junkies need our "fixes" - hats, Bakelite, faux fur, Issey Miyake ...) Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night!

In this photo, taken May 24 at Fabulous Fanny's, we check out the fabulous selection of accessories, and model two pairs of FF's vintage designer shades. Note our flagrantly gray hair.

Valerie's wardrobe: anonymous straw hat in military cap shape (a thrift shop find), holly and ebony pin by Georges Larondelle, from the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Peter Lane ceramic necklace, H&M cotton and lycra long tee, Big Apple cotton pants with adjustable velcro closure, MOMA plastic digital watch ($8!).

Jean is wearing a black Tahari 3/4 sleeve T, a 70's black plastic neck ring, an armful of vintage Bakelite bangles and fingers full of black Bakelite and gold rings, a black Issey Miyake Pleats Please skirt and black Dansko clogs and is carrying a faux leopard tote.

A Real Shocker!

A Real Shocker!

"He said...he said it wasn't such a good day to die."

Kevin Bacon in "Flatliners" (1990)

Early last Saturday morning, I thought there was a distinct possibility that I would be blogging no more. In fact, as they say, I thought I had "bought the farm". You see, after spending Friday afternoon trying to control what I thought was a simple case of dehydration causing my heart to beat irregularly, the defibrillator in my chest decided to take action.

As I lay in bed late Friday night contemplating whether I should seek medical attention, I heard what sounded like a light bulb popping and saw a blue streak in front of my eyes. It took me a second to realize that "Oh my god, it went off!" I told my nurse to wake my parents up, and as he was exiting my room, the device shocked me again. It felt like being punched in the chest.

911 was called and within 5 minutes (although it seemed like an eternity), EMS arrived to transport me to the emergency room. Though I was really anxious of having my contracted legs injured while being transferred from my bed to the stretcher, the EMS personnel and my nurse were extremely careful. Throughout the 15-minute ride to the hospital, the defibrillator shocked me at least a dozen times. I was wondering why the device wasn't able to regulate my heart and was continuing to fire at will. I looked up at the white lights in the ambulance roof, hoping that wouldn't be the last thing I ever saw.

Upon arrival at the hospital, the first goal was to insert an IV so that medications could be given to me to bring my heart rate under control. Easier said than done with my hard-to-find veins. Meanwhile, my defibrillator was shocking me seemingly every few seconds. Just before a shock was delivered, I would feel a weird crawling sensation near my heart, which I figured was the device charging up to fire again, and the heart monitor above me would show a rate as high as 200 beats per minute. The only thing that seemed to help prevent a shock was when the nurse massaged my carotid artery.

Once an IV was finally inserted, doctors began a drip of a medication called amiodarone, an anti-arrhythmic, which began to regulate my heart. The shocks grew less and less until finally stopping. At this point, I was transferred to the ICU, where I began a weekend-long stay for observation. Later that morning, a technician from the manufacturer of my defibrillator arrived. He interrogated my defibrillator and determined that the device had been shocking me for atrial fibrillation, a serious condition typically treated by medication alone, but not nearly as life-threatening as ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation. Although devices such as mine are smart, once the heart rate reaches a certain speed, it is unable to distinguish between atrial fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia, and therefore delivers a shock. The technician adjusted the parameters of my device so that it will attempt to better distinguish between the two kinds of rhythms. A cardiologist at the hospital visited with me and my mother and explained the situation to us. They would start me on an oral version of amiodarone, see how I tolerated it, and if there were no problems I would be discharged within a day or so.

Staying in the hospital, of course, is no easy task when you have Duchenne's. To their credit, the nurses, nursing students, and respiratory therapists were extremely caring and kind. Even still, things like turning me are not the everyday situation for nurses who have never cared for someone with DMD. Although I ended up with a few aches and pains, there wasn't a whole lot that anyone could have done to prevent this. I wasn't completely comfortable with the hospital ventilator the respiratory therapists switched me to -- it was also overly sensitive and would alarm constantly -- but I made the best of the situation. Without my own air mattress I was unable to get extremely comfortable in bed, although the bed in which I lay was actually pretty state-of-the-art. Because I had no way of using a nurse's call bell (or a call bell into which I could blow), my mother spent the weekend with me, sleeping in a chair at my bedside at night. It was a good idea that she stayed with me to make sure that my complicated list of medicines was followed, and also to assist with transfers and positioning. I couldn't have gotten through this ordeal without her, as well as the other family members and friends who gave me their support at such a trying time.

By Sunday night, the anti-anxiety medication I had been taking round the clock had sufficiently constipated me. And really, no stay at the hospital would be complete without a delicious milk-and-molasses enema! Very effective, I'll tell you, but I could find a better way to spend a Sunday night.

Early Monday morning, I got the news that I was to be discharged within a few hours. After a sleepless night, I couldn't wait to get home in my own bed and sleep away my nightmarish weekend. The good news is that the medicine seems to be working and I am still here. The anxiety remains and it may take a while until I am not afraid. My life may never be the same, but like the quote above, "it wasn't such a good day to die." So I guess I'll stick around for a while!

Special thanks to Julie for helping me type out such a long entry!

Beer Fixes Everything

Getting together with your bros or hanging with the boys is often referred to as some good old fashioned male bonding. And the great thing about male bonding is it never goes out of style! So suck on that trend setting, fad following, overly fashion conscious women! No matter how hard you try, you can’t change everything about your man. In fact, over time you will realize this and either move on to another "project" man to mold, or you will learn to embrace your current boyfriend for all that he already is. It’s sort of like how for years women have been trying to get guys to throw out their most comfy, holey jeans and threadbare, tattered tees, but as men we held onto these items with such a death grip that you were powerless to pull them from the sweaty clinches of our fists. So instead, you learned to accept with open arms. You accepted them so lovingly that you allowed them to grace the pages of your God - Vogue magazine. Yes, you made the very outfit we loved to kick it and chill in on a Saturday afternoon a thing of fashion beauty. Yes, we men manipulated you into seeing it our way. And you women fell for it - hook, line and sinker!

Of course there are things women manipulate men into liking too, take wine for example. I’ll admit that if it wasn’t for women, I might have never become a wine drinker. (Red wine that is, only women and gay men drink white wine.) But when I’m with my boys, it’s beer. Domestic, import, lager, ale, bottled, canned, home brewed or fresh from the tap. It doesn’t matter. It’s all good, because it’s not really about beer. It’s about the camaraderie. It’s about the male bonding. It’s about the unspoken, yet understood, platonic love that man has for his fellow man that seems to only exist in the presence of cracking open a cold one. How a simple beer has the power to smooth out any riffs and calm any waves between a couple of dudes. A yeast, hops and barley miracle worker! Simply put, beer fixes everything.

Male bonding is a term that is used in ethology, social science, and in general usage to describe patterns of friendship and/or cooperation in men. The exact meaning of the term differs across contexts. In the context of human relationships, male bonding is used to (sometimes jokingly or informally) describe friendship between men, or the way in which men befriend each other. The expression is sometimes used synonymously with the word camaraderie. Friendships among men are often based on shared activities (read drinking beer), instead of emotional sharing, which is more typical of women's friendships (though this is not always the case). Now someone created a Wikipedia page for the term "female bonding," but if you ask me, such a term doesn’t truly exist.

Although, I suppose one could argue that female bonding could be defined as going to the beauty salon with your closest gal pals to get your hair done. Perhaps a Girl’s Night Out giggling over martinis, or wasting away an afternoon gossiping over capuchinos then indulging in some high calorie/high fat chocolate delicacy would define female bonding as well. Scheduling mani-pedis and facials, followed by shopping afterwards, would probably be labeled as female boding too. Of course the main difference between female bonding and male bonding is that women need an activity to do when they get together. Men just need a beer. Sure there may be other activities going on while drinking beer, but the main focus is the beer. Think about it. Guys playing golf + beer. Guys going camping + beer. Guys going to the game + beer. Guys gathering around an outdoor picnic table to discus racial profiling at the White House with the President + beer. See the connection here? They all have one common factor - beer.

As you know, today is Thirsty Thursday. And in celebration, the Pres is holding a kegger! That’s right, there’s a real beer bash going down at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. So grab that red plastic cup and call up your frat brothers because it’s happening this afternoon! I believe the beer pong table is being set up as we speak, while our party animal President is tightening up his ankles for the keg stand and relaxing his throat for the beer bong! Ok, I kid. It’s not going down exactly like that. Most likely, it will be a much more dignified and sophisticated meeting of the minds between black Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the white arresting officer, Sergeant James Crowley. The diplomatic in the middle, President Barack Obama...and of course beer.

There are tons of questions being asked, like what kind of beer are they serving and does the White House only serve American beer? Of course this big question today at the Suds Summit is...Can sharing a beer solve race relations? I haven’t a clue, but I think it’s worth a shot!

We all know that too much beer can lead to beer muscle, which then leads to a drunken brawl. Although the great thing about guys is that, unlike most women, we get it out of our system. If we don’t get along, the bar fight ensues. Then when we are thrown out into the street, we’re cool. It’s all over. We can then shake hands and walk away. Whereas women tend to let things fester and hold these grudges against other women often for years! Personally, I think they should follow the ways of their male counterpart. Let a beer be the diplomat. Seriously, who doesn’t feel better about a bad situation after a good beer? And if they still feel some hostility, then slug it out if need be. Besides, chick fights are always highly entertaining!

While someone is sure to scream that physical violence is not the answer and drinking alcohol only fuels the fire, the President is hopeful that sharing a beer will sooth wounds and perhaps mend years of hatred between two races. It’s true that while one consumes beer, physical violence can sometimes find its way into the male bonding session. However, just the right amount of beer leads to hugs. It leads to the happy drunk, that "I love you man" slurred speech paling around that is quite common in the male species. A Coke and a smile is for kids. A beer and a bromance is for men.

Eye On The Prize

I can’t give it away just yet - the BIG news! I want build up the anticipation, make you beg for it like a dirty pornstar down on her knees. Afterall, I had to wait for nearly a decade for this moment! So it's only fair I make you wait at least until August...which is when I plan on revealing the mystery, which is also when the full story will reveal itself to me. August 2009 is when it all unfolds and the story will be told. Until then, I have just as many, if not more, questions than you do. There is lots of uncertainty and plenty of doubt. But there is also hope. Always hold onto hope. And I am hopeful. Very, very hopeful. Perhaps foolishly hopeful, but nevertheless, hopeful.

I'm going to follow a "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" policy here, but I suppose alluding to the secret a little never hurt anyone. So I'm going to give you a hint, just one hint. You may never see me the same after this. You may view me as low and disgusting, or maybe you already see me as that? If so, then nothing will change. But if you see me in a heavenly glow, then brace yourself. I may very well shatter that beautiful image.

Sorry to be a tease, but there is fun in the unknown and yet to be discovered. And if you thought my Prop 8 post was controversial, you ain't seen nothing yet!

For now, I have my eye on the prize and I won't lose focus or determination. Stay tuned.

Sub Ground Imaging offers free geophysics

I'm away in Europe for 6 weeks, so you won't see quite so much of me here. At the moment, I'm doing archaeometry and magnetometry at the Poggio Colla Etruscan site near Florence.

But via the ISAP litserv, and speaking of geophysics, a nice message from Sub Ground Imaging in southern England(superfluous capitalizations removed):

If you are managing an educational or other non-profit archaeological project,
and are interested in our services, please feel free to contact us. We may very
well be both able and willing to assist you. We will consider donating our
geophysics services free of charge to worthy projects that benefit education or
further the knowledge of British Archaeology.

Why as a commercial concern would we do this?That is simple. We ourselves have a keen interest in archaeology and understand the importance of its contribution to the history of our country. We also understand the importance of state of the art techniques and resources being available to educational projects and to non-profit
archaeological groups and societies.If you feel your project could benefit from our assistance please drop us a line with a brief outline of your project. We will be pleased to help any project we feel to be both genuine, and worthy.

Know Your Sibling Role

I can't relate to the "only child." Their upbringing was nothing like mine. They didn’t have to share their toys, wear hand-me-downs, fight over who gets the last Oreo, call shotgun, engage in tattling, or even compete for their parents love and attention. They didn’t have to deal with the daily battles and the emotional roller coaster rides that the rest of us who grew up with siblings had to deal with. I’m part of a trio. I had two evil, older sisters. And then there was innocent me, the baby of the family. Or at least that is how I saw it at age 8. Even as a young child, I knew my role. If you have brothers and sisters, you know what I’m talking about. Every sibling has a role and it’s important you know it. Sure you may not like your sibling role and you may even want to break free of the mold, but it’s imperative to your survival that you learn to embrace this appointed position and use it to your advantage. Your job as a kid is to do the bare minimum that is expected of you (in your sibling role) and then fly under the radar when it comes to the rest...AKA, pass the buck. Your parents say they have high hopes for you, but deep inside, they are aware of your shortcomings. They know where every one of their sons and daughters stands in this world. I knew where I stood. And today, I still stand there.

My oldest sister was the brains in the family. She was creative in writing and in art, a crafty kid. She was also the diplomat and the bossiest thing you’ve ever seen! A bit of a goody two-shoes and kind of a band nerd. She was the last to be picked in gym class and often teased by my other sister and I that she was the milkman’s daughter because she looked nothing like us. My second oldest sister, the middle child, was the attention hog. Somewhat of an airhead, but nobody seemed to mind because she was the "looker" in the family and often got her own way based off her good looks alone. She couldn’t hit a volleyball to save her life, but always managed to get picked early by the gym class captain (who was also the school’s star quarterback) simply because she was dating him. Blessed with beauty in every area and the most popular girl in school, it was enough to make anyone sick with envy.

And then there was me, the youngest. The clown and the athlete. I excelled in sports and excelled in getting laughs from my classmates, which of course landed me in the principal’s office on more than one occasion. The badboy and the daredevil who had to fight from under the shadow of his sister, Miss Popular, and form his own identity. I enjoyed pushing the limits and found the mundane mind numbing "education" or lack of "education" that high school delivered to be a bore. The absence of mental stimulation frustrated me to the point where I no longer cared about school. This of course was misinterpreted and I was seen as being a lazy slacker, when really I was just bored out of my f-ing skull and needed challenged! The only reason I even bothered keeping my grades up was so I wouldn’t be kicked off the basketball team. Inside of me and behind closed doors was a kid bursting with potential. I took an interest in writing, art and music - writing lyrics, not playing it. Of course no one would ever know about these interests/talents because I was far too insecure to let the real me shine. I was much more comfortable in my appointed role of clown and athlete.

There are numerous studies out there that talk about the importance birth order plays in the development of a child. These include their interests, talents, career choices, personality, etc. As a general rule of thumb, the oldest is said to take on a parental role to the younger siblings. The middle child constantly feels they are being overlooked. And the youngest is said to be babied too much. According to these studies, as the baby of the family I would be labeled as being a bit spoiled. The baby is used to getting what they want. However, they always feel they have something to prove. They were brought up with not a lot of expectations placed upon them. So they place expectations upon themselves, unrealistic expectations they most likely will never reach. I am very much like this. Then combine it with the fact that I'm a competitive freak and you can see how this can lead to a life of self-torment. I place an enormous amount of pressure on myself to not just succeed, but to excel far beyond others expectations of me and far beyond even the expectations of myself! It's a game that no matter how hard I play, I will forever lose.

I love my sisters and I want nothing but the best for them. However, when I compare myself to them, I feel instances of inadequacy and moments of self-doubt. In my childlike mind I want to be bigger, better, faster, stronger. I want it all. I want the power, the money, the fancy car, the lush life. There is nothing they have that I don't want. Maybe that's extremely materialist, shallow and wrong. Or maybe that’s all just a part of sibling rivalry. There are some things we never outgrow, sibling roles included.

***NOTE***
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