The human ear: you don't want to know what can go wrong!

Those of you who know me probably also know that I've been struggling for the last four years with an inner-ear condition that produces lengthy (a month or longer) periods of vertigo. Well, after going to about a million doctors, I might finally have found something that works. To the left is the physical therapy movement that I've been doing, called the Brandt-Daroff exercise--apparently named after a couple of scary German gym teachers. It's stupidly simple to do, and takes only about 15 minutes a day to perform. I look exactly like this when I do it, too--except my boobs aren't as huge and floppy. Interestingly enough, almost every single image of this excercise on the net depicts a woman flopping over, rather than a man. Is there something particularly sexy or feminine about this? I certainly don't feel very hot while flipping around like a dying fish on the edge of my bed. Anyway, after only four sessions of it, I've been noticeably better, if not immediately perfect. This could be a fluke, but for now I'm going to take it as a sign that I might not have a napoleanic tumor invading my ear or inciting a coup in my brain. However, I still don't have a diagnosis because I failed the determining diagnostic test that would tell the physical therapist if I definitely have BPPV, as described below:

"Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) or "Benign paroxysmal vertigo" (BPV) is a condition caused by problems in the inner ear.

Specifically, it is due to the malpositioning and inappropriate accumulation of particulate matter in the semicircular canals of the inner ear. The primary symptom is the sudden onset of severe vertigo that occurs exclusively with head movement in the direction of the affected ear. Patients often describe their first experience occurring while turning their head in bed. The vertigo is brief in duration -- less than 15 seconds by definition. It is often associated with nausea. Patients do not experience other neurological deficits such as slurred speech, numbness, or weakness, and if these symptoms are present, a more concerning etiology such as posterior circulation stroke, must be considered.

The condition is diagnosed by performing the Dix-Hallpike (aka Barany) maneuver which is diagnostic for the condition."

So, no one's really sure why I failed the Dix-Hallpike, but it might be because I have a very mild form of BPPV, or because I am so far into the attack (8 weeks) that the "particulate matter" may be nearly dissloved, or because I might have displaced matter in a very unusual place in my ear. No one is certain. But I'm going back to the physical therapist next week to retake all the balance tests and see if I am, indeed, improving. If I don't show real diagnostic improvement, I will probably have to have an MRI or a CT scan, which is a chilling prospect. Anyone who's ever seen television knows that only dying people get these tests (Mark Green on ER and Joyce Summers on Buffy are only two examples). They get them, and then they die before the season ends. Very foreboding. But I'm not there yet, so it's flopping like a fish for now.

the little death

Ok, this is totally M's discovery, but everyone needs to go to www.beautifulagony.com, which is an entire site of people filmed while orgasming, BUT from the neck up. It is an amazing experience to look right into the eyes of a stranger you'll never meet while he or she jerks off. It's a complete violation of public/private distinctions, and it will initially make you very uncomfortable to watch, but that eventually fades away...(ahem). The other really interesting thing I realized while perusing this site is that we live in a money-shot obssesed culture. I mean, it takes some of these people SIX MINUTES or longer to come! That is a long time to sit, looking into someone's eyes as they rub one off--and you find yourself thinking new thoughts. This is total anti-porn, but it's still sexy! There's even a section called "overkill," in which they have videos of people who are overacting and screaming and thrashing around, which is basically hilarious.

--Q

Sorry Latisha, there are no black princesses at Disneyworld!

(Above is a view of "Cinderellabration." I didn't take any pictures because the images seared into my mind are the only photo album I'll ever need. Also, all the people in the photo have normal-sized heads, but you need to imagine them as having totally round, genderless bodies. I have never, ever seen so many fat people as I did at Disneyworld.)

I think perhaps the lowest point in my recent life was when I was forced to fly to Florida for my sister's college graduation. Not that I have anything of real substance against my sister--except that she is some kind of bizzaro version of me who made me look like a total sweaty freak the whole time I was growing up because she was so cute and popular, and above all, NORMAL. Now, to me, "normal" is a very special kind of cultural impoverishment, and my sister is practically typical in every way. She picked the perfect place to attend college and join a sorority: Florida--a state ranking high on the list of national embarassments (although there are SO many). Florida was one of the first states to outlaw gay adoption, and it has a host of other nasty little laws on the books. Florida is exactly the kind of state that gets thrown at the second-string relatives of the totally rich fucktards who are now in charge. EVERYTHING there--the people, the buildings, the stores--is like a promotional prize; shiny and squeaky, but with a complete and utter lack of structure or essence. Everything looks like something you might see on the shelves at Dollar General. It is truly the desert of the real.

Anyway, here are some of the things that occurred:

--I had to go to an undergraduate ceremony during finals week, during which I was writing a total of 4 twenty-page papers. I had already missed my Master's graduation the year before to attend my brother's graduation, but shucks--no one ever really noticed.
--Straight from the airport, I was whisked to a barbecque at which there was absolutely no vegan food and the fierce Florida mosquitoes feasted on my tofu-enriched blood.
--I experienced shock at how fat my sister had become, and spent at least half an hour staring at the curve of her stomach and convincing myself that she wasn't, indeed, pregnant.
--Although it was a balmy 80+ degrees out, I couldn't wear any T-shirts because my tattoos would show and then everyone would foam at the mouth and lose their minds.
--I had to sleep on an air matress on the floor of my sister's walk-in closet because my family saved money on a hotel so that...
--...we could go to DISNEYWORLD, the fucking most awful place on earth! The most terrible thing that happened during the TEN FUCKING HOURS I was trapped at Disneyworld was being forced to watch a song-and-dance number called "Cinderellabration," in which all the other princesses crowned Cinderella queen. The message of Cinderellabration was that "every girl is a princess," in case you wondered. However, there are also no black princesses allowed at Disneyworld because "there are no black princesses in the movies." Hello! There are no black people IN ANY of the movies (and Whoopie playing a hyena doesn't count). This is a rather pathetic claim to realism, considering that many of the other characters are talking animals. But the most horrible part of this whole thing was that I actually got mad at the fat sacks of lard that were blocking my view of Cinderella's castle. I should have thanked them, and then looked for someone to puncture my eardrums with a corndog stick.
--But the worst, the ABSOLUTE WORST thing that happened (and it takes a lot to top the magic kingdom), was when a 300-pound woman in a wheelchair ran over my foot while my family was waiting for a table in a restaurant that served 30 different kinds of cheesecake. You should have seen the shit-caked toilets at that establishment--it would have made you think twice about ever eating cream cheese again.

--Q

invention of the wheel

What Triggers Road Rage?

"Here are some most common triggers for prompting an act of road rage:

• Not reacting soon enough after a light turns green.
• Weaving back and forth between lanes.
• Cutting other drivers off.
• Pulling out in front of someone and then slowing down after doing so.
• Tailgating to pressure other drivers to go faster or get out of the way.
• Trying to beat a yellow light turning red and obstructing a lane of traffic.
• Traveling in the passing lane at a slower rate of speed, making it impossible for others to pass you.
• Not paying attention because of being on the phone/making an obscene gesture.

The best survival strategy is to stay out of the way as there is no reasoning with someone who is behaving irrationally.

It takes two people to initiate the problem of road rage and if there is only one participant in the act, it narrows the possibility of an even more dangerous situation."

In other words: don't escalate, instead walk away like the dominated corporate bee you suspect you are.

So says our beloved University police force, and I know you have all experienced the flash of rage that occurs when one of these things happens to you. How the police arrived at this list I have no idea. Interviewing recent crash victims about their "feelings?" "Please ignore your gaping head wound and tell us what it was that made you want to kill." It seems to me that the police have made a glaring omission here in leaving out the infamous "pull around," which is guaranteed to provoke seething wrath within parsecs. This occurs frequently to me: I am sitting at a red light when an SUV pulls up next to me on my right; then, when the light turns green, the SUV burns about a gallon of gas pulling around in front of me while my much more gas-efficient Kia (which is apparently powered by eco-squirrels) struggles to keep up. I am so instantly enraged by this that I immediately wish death on the person doing it, and often wish I had a faster ride so that I could block the offender off and force him to drive directly into a parked car.

If I did so, would I really be to blame? I am a staunch believer in instant public karma. In order to make life in society of strangers liveable, there are certain rules that exist in public space, and I firmly believe that people who break them should be instantly rebuked (my version of a rebuke would be sort of like a taser of justice coming down from on high). The things that drive me insane are endless, but here are a few common examples:

--Parents who think that wage slaves working retail are magically-provided nannies that exist to give them free child care while they shop
--Fat white people who can't pick up their trash or put their trays away at cafeterias
--Old men who cough, mumble, fart, or hork up giant clots of emphysema while assuming that just because they're deaf, no one can hear them
--Fat people who insist on taking the elevator one floor up or down, thus extending my ride indefinitely
--People who can't be bothered to return their shopping carts to the collection area, assuming that the store will just find some brown-skinned kid to do it
--People who spill liquids in public and then flee, rather than cleaning them up or at least notifying some poor slob with a mop
--People who walk very slowly in front of me while gabbing about nothing and pointing
--People who cut in line
--People who talk or sing to themselves in public like a lunatic, but are perfectly capable of having a normal conversation if spoken to
--People who don't tip

Basically, there are only two reasons why people perform these amazing annoyances: either they're so oblivious to the way society runs that they honestly don't know they're offending people (which borders on both stupid and sociopathic), or they do know and are just purposely ignoring the rules, banking on the fact that others will obey the rule to be polite and not call them out. When you do call someone out on any of the above, they behave like scolded children and fly into an accusatory tantrum--evidence that supports the latter theory. The few times I've succeeded in preventing someone from pulling around me, he (and it's always a he) has honked at me, tailgated me, gesticulated obscenely, and even passed on the left across a double yellow line, against oncoming traffic. The behavior makes absolutely no sense, since he was the one breaking the law, except to communicate that not a single one of these fuckers appreciates being foiled. Well, I say FOIL THEM ALL.

(This entire post was prompted by the experience of being rear-ended this morning. M and I were sitting at a red light, when all of a sudden the car jerked violently and there was a loud "bang." M and I, highstrung from mentally preparing for the horrors of our jobs, both instantly screamed before we even knew what had happened. Of course, we were extremely nice to the guy who ran into us. He was one of the good ones. But they are few and far, far between. Next time you see flagrant disregard for public rules, remember the taser of justice.)

---"The term "blog" is a contraction of 'Web log.' 'Blog' can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog."---

So, yes, according to the unfortunate word's definition, I am now a "blogger," mostly because I have caved to the peer pressure of several friends (you know of whom I speak) who have been suggesting I start one. You win. Also, it's a great way for me to continue my puppet dance of denial and procrastination, without which I would be incapable of functioning on a daily basis.

There is no real way to write a first blog entry. First entries are awkward and a bit like a blind date, and you find yourself rambling about weather and sick relatives and "hey--dogs are so different from cats!" rather than saying anything of merit. Not that there's ever much merit in any blog, anywhere. Except here, of course.

Those of you reading this probably already know me quite well, so I'll dispense with the formalities and try to entertain with a bit of commentary on this "blog" experience. Blogs are the equivalent of schoolgirls' diaries, mixed with a bit of in-class note passing and locker graffitti. They give us the same sense of something being a "public secret"--and they function much like gossip. I've always been addicted to the spike of anxiety that comes with hearing gossip, gossiping about someone else, or even being gossiped about! My inner masochist once compelled me to write something nasty about myself on my school desk, just to see if others would chime in to defend me. A word to the wise, don't try this. Instead, the gossipers pounced on the smell of teenage blood and trashed me into next week. And so I learned the lesson that every adolescent girl does sooner or later: with gossip comes risk. You can lose your friends, get your hair pulled, offend the general public, and even get beaten up on the playground because of it. Yes, gossip is a cruel mistress.

Perhaps even more dangerously, blogs lure us into the fiction that we are all delicate, individual snowflakes with unique personalities and sugarplum fairy dreams that NO ONE WILL EVER UNDERSTAND. This fiction is easily punctured, however, by how hard it is to get a blog name no one else has claimed. I was fucking certain that no one else in the whole wide world would have used the obscure reference I wished to employ, but, alas, I had to add dashes to it to publish this page! For those of you who do, indeed, know the reference (a select few), I am sorry to submit that we are not so snarky after all.

I will make no promises about the content here, or its regularity. All I can say is that you will have the pleasure of reading the English language minus glaring grammatical and mechanical errors, which should be reason enough for you to hang on my every word.

--Q