another dwindled dawn

I am gonna whine

2011-06-20T23:25:00.000-04:00

Sunday, early afternoon, and I am cleaning up. We are recyclers, but the city in which we live doesn’t make that easy. We have to gather up our recycling and tote it about in order to love our planet, but we do it. So Sunday, as I’m picking up, I put all of our recyclables in a bag, planning on taking them to a recycling center the next day. They are sitting in the open trash bag against our front door in case I come upon a soda can or empty soap bottle whilst I go about my other cleaning business. Bart, chubby feline, begins nomming on the bag because he loves to eat plastic. Okay.

I figure it’s pretty full and put said bag out into the shared hall of our building while I finish my last task with every intention of getting the bag and putting it into the car in just a few minutes. I wasn’t ready to go outside because, well, I didn’t have pants on, okay? It is kind of hot, and why should I wear pants in the summer if I don’t have to?

Meanwhile, The Boyfriend wakes up and starts having explosive diarrhea and simultaneously begins vomiting. My attention immediately switches to him. Instead of doing other stuff, I'm worried about him dehydrating because this goes on for HOURS. Thirty hours to be exact.

Cut to today, nine o'clock on a Monday night. He's been sleeping soundly without waking up to shit every 20 minutes for the first time in a day and a half and I’m lying in bed next to him vigilantly watching because he’s hardly kept down anything. Suddenly there is crazy knocking on the front door and doorbell ringing.

What the holy goddamn fuck?!

I jumped straight up as did The Boyfriend. I told him to lay back down as I run out to the door. Normally I make him answer the door because this place is SCARY, but this time I am PISSED that someone woke him up and I don’t want him out of bed, jarring his stomach around. In probably fifteen seconds I’m at the peephole.

NO ONE IS THERE.

I am NOT going to answer the door to no one. I wait, look about, there’s no noise. If someone’s waiting on the other side with a gun or something, I decide I don’t want to be there, so I go back to The Boyfriend, tell him to get back in bed (he’s out at this point) and follow, telling him no one’s there in a hushed voice.

Then the banging and ringing begins again!

Only this time with the drunken slurs of our landlady/super/whateverthefucksheis, “It’s Drunken Landlady! You need to clean up this trash out here! Blah blah, *hic* blah!”

So I immediately open the door to get her to shut up. I realize I am in the wrong, but am also really pissed at the way she’s handling this. Before I can even say hello, she goes off about this trash and how we can’t be doing this because if we do than everyone else will and “That’s trash—it doesn’t belong in the hall it belongs in the dumpster!”

I was really taken aback, and I wanted to apologize initially, so that’s what came out. I started telling her I didn’t mean for it to happen, but she just went on and on, so I interrupted her and tried to explain what happened, that I had completely forgotten it was out there, and then The Boyfriend was behind me and he was so pissed and starts telling her she doesn’t need to come over banging on the door and screaming. So I try and explain about how he was really sick and I forgot about the bag, and she just yells over me the whole time, really inappropriately—that’s not how adults deal with a problem.

So I put my hand up and say, “WAIT!” She finally takes a breath. I’m like, “Before you started screaming I had every intention of apologizing. I had forgotten this was out here, so I’m sorry.” I was saying it with a hard tone, but I wasn’t screaming by any means.

She kind of settles down, then goes on to say, “Well we’re talked about this before.”

Excuse me? My mind went completely dumb. We had? Then I remembered.

Last fall I had these bites all over me. My whole body swelled up. TURNS OUT IT WAS BEDBUGS.

Anyway, the fuckers were coming from the apartment above us, so we had to truck all of our clothing out in big plastic bags and wash it at a laundry mat, AND TAKE THE CATS WITH US, while some strangers roamed around our apartment and sprayed it. Anyway, in that process, we had like eight bags of clothing lined up in the hallway to take to the laundry mat. She happened to come by at the same time—WHILE WE WERE CARRYING THEM TO THE CAR—and tells us we can’t leave trash in the hall. How fucking stupid can a person be? We tell her, WHILE CARRYING THESE BAGS, that we are moving them RIGHT NOW and they’re not trash—they’re our clothing because HER BUILDING gave us bedbugs (she didn’t know because the building is owned by a different company, I don’t really know her exact role). We then had a conversation about the whole thing. She settled down after we explained it.

So back to the present, I remember the bedbug situation, and I go off, “Seriously? You mean when we had eight bags of NOT TRASH out here and were moving it when you came along? That was NOT us leaving trash out!”

She basically says whatever and tells us it’s her job to check on these things.

Ah. Finally I know what her job is.

Then she kind of goes to leave and I decide I’m not done. “You know, you can’t just disappear after you knock because I am NOT going to answer the door to no one.”

She get all offended then and says, “Well, I guess I just have to announce myself from now on!” Rolls her eyes, throws her hands up, that sort of thing.

I was downright PISSED. I point to the shared door and tell her when other people are leaving that open constantly, I am not inclined to just answer the door when someone comes literally pounding on it at nine at night. She seemed to get it then, she even told me she got it. The Boyfriend warns us the cats are going to run out, so I basically shut the door on her, but she was already walking away.

What pisses me off so much is that she chooses to pick on us when the other people in this building are utterly disgusting and the general upkeep of the whole place is pretty much nonexistent. The other tenants are loud as all fuck and are all perpetual smokers (but so is she so of course she sees no problem with a little extra cancer floating our way). I can’t use my bathroom in the morning without feeling like I’m showering in an ashtray. The people who have balconies have shit strewn all over them (I think someone is even growing pot), the dumpster is always overflowing and smells terrible, and the parking lot is filled with an assortment of cars that don’t have parking tags in them. Half the screens in these windows are falling out, the doors have one inch gaps underneath them, the tile in the walkways are all ripped up, the cement stairs are crumbling, the washers both leak, the dryers smell like burning, and I could go on and on, but that’s really enough to prove my point. How does one bag of trash warrant her tirade when all this other shit is going on?

And what made talking to us like that, like we are children, seem appropriate?

Total lack of sense.

Sorry, I just…ugh…I couldn’t. FUCK LANDPEOPLE!

My Apologies

2011-05-27T23:06:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was a good day. I found out that I am, pretty much, finished dealing with medical bills. Bills I incurred SIX MONTHS AGO. I should consider myself incredibly lucky because most places would have sent me to a collections agency for not paying them after 30 days (except, oh yeah, that happened too), but that didn't relieve the stress of having to call four separate billing agencies weekly (more often than not a few times a week) to keep them from turning me over to debt collectors and ruining my non-existent credit.

So this blog is supposed to be an explanation for my inability to be myself for the past half a year. Besides the fact that I very literally almost died, lost my car, missed a lot of my paid-by-the-hour-no-vacation-or-sick-time job, was in extreme amounts of pain, had to buy another car, got dropped from my car insurance, and am now suffering post-traumatic stress disorder every time I'm in the passenger's seat (and am not even considering the driver's seat still), I have been totally stressing out about these bills. I do have insurance, but they denied covering anything for months. Thankfully I am also so far below the poverty line that the leftover bills from the hospital were covered by hospital charity, but I had no idea I was going to be awarded that until just yesterday. Hurray!

I also thought this might be a good time to share with you all the cost of medical care in America. Working in a doctor's office I understand why some things are charged the way they are, there's liability and massive overhead for healthcare, but HOLY FUCKING SHIT CHECK THIS OUT:

That is just page one. Let me break this down for you. Just to stay in the room for one night it was $1,605. That's like 8 days in the Waldorf Astoria Orlando Hotel via Expedia.com. Believe me, it wasn't that nice. THERE WASN'T EVEN A MINI FRIDGE. Not that I would have broke into that shit. Can you imagine what peanuts would be?

Then they drew blood of course and ran all these tests. But like, I don't exactly see the point. ALL my scores were totally out of whack (I have access to the OhioHealth database at work so I looked my own results up) which you would have had to guess they were going to be all fucked up because I'd just been hit by a car. And of course it had to be taken twice to make sure everything went back to normal. Or something. Because they obviously had no idea what normal was for me...

Page two is interesting because of the radiological stuff. Here you can see the hospital getting its machines paid for tenfold! Also, be sure to note that these fees are for the pictures alone--they do NOT cover the radiologist's charge for reading anything. That bill will come later. Or in my case not at all until some rando calls me and asks for my credit card info. More on that later.

To this day I don't know the actual difference between physical and occupational therapy and I have apparently had both! I guess two girls showing me how to use my crutches for about 10 minutes and having me go up a few stairs was the physical part and ultimately making me puke was occupational? I did continue to vomit the rest of the day, and I was really good at it. I mean, I would have hired me.

Now this page...this page burns my biscuits. I don't know what all those charges are under the catheter, but oh my fuck it better not be for inserting it the THREE SEPARATE TIMES. Those bitches should have paid me for that--no one should have three strangers fucking with their vagina for that long and not make some profit. Also, "ER Level V." Remember that.

$49.20 FOR A SODIUM CHLORIDE INJECTION? FOR FUCKING SALT WATER? FOR SHIT THEY GET IN BULK FOR LIKELY LESS THAN A DOLLAR A BAG? SHIT THEY GET FOR FUCKING FREE WITH INFUSIBLE DRUGS?

Enoxaparin is the generic name for Lovenox which is essentially a blood thinner. I had to self inject that stuff everyday for a month afterward so I wouldn't clot and DIE. A month's supply of that stuff costs $500.00 at the pharmacy. Yup. That's a lot, but it's also only like $17.00 a shot. As hefty as that is, it is significantly less than the $96.60 I was charged for them while I was at the hospital. Also, rat poison is like $5 a box and it is PRETTY MUCH THE SAME THING.

AND IN WHAT FUCKING WORLD IS HYDROCODONE $3.75 PER PILL?

Remember ER Level V? I knew you would. Well what the hell is this almost $6000 trauma activation fee?

I'd also like to point out that I spoke with Dr. McGann once, he was a total asshole, and I was sent a separate $900 and something bill for his services separately. My orthopedist who I followed up with was about another $1000 for two separate visits and some x-rays, a chunk of which I paid for out of pocket because, lucky me, my accident happened in December and my insurance rolled over in January so meeting my $5000 deductible (yeah, you read right--three zeros) stopped mattering when I had to go for a follow up in the new year. Then I had a $1100 ambulance service fee. Ambulances are run by separate companies, just so you know. And the people who work in their billing departments will call you a liar when you're telling them the truth. It's a fact.

And remember the radiologist's fees? Well, I got a call from a collection agency asking me how I was going to pay this $43 bill. I had no idea what he was talking about, and could barely understand him to boot, and had to practically beg him to find out where the bill was from. Then I had to google the name and get a phone number, call it, be asked for my account number, explain that I don't know what it is because I never received a bill, be told they need an account number, tell them again I don't have access to it, but I did get a call from a collection agency, and finally give her my name which she used to pull me up just as easily as with an account number. She tells me they billed the insurance company five times, denied all five times, then billed me, THE LETTER WAS RETURNED TO THEM BY THE POSTAL SERVICE AS UNDELIVERABLE (the USPS is pretty fucking sucky here at our apartment), and so they sent me to a collection's agency EVEN THOUGH THEY CLEARLY HAD MY PHONE NUMBER TO GIVE TO THE AGENCY AND COULD HAVE JUST CALLED ME. When she told me the bill was for $39 I almost shit myself. I told her if I had gotten a bill for that little bit I would have paid it with a smile on my face. Eventually they straightened everything out and I paid it out of pocket even though insurance should have covered it, but that scared the shit out of me.

So hopefully this kind of explains why I have been in not the best mood for the last half a year. Well, no, probably not, but maybe something got knocked funny in my head. They never did a brain scan, after all, so we may never know.

I also want to be clear that a big part of showing you this was to make you all appalled at healthcare costs, not to be me just bitching about it because, while it sucked, I am not in debt now and I'm not having to pay off thousands of dollars like I know a lot of people get stuck with, so I am very thankful. I also understand, like I said, the overhead at a hospital. I understand doctors need to make $500 to look you over and do nothing for you. I GET THAT.

I am most thankful, however, to be done with it. And maybe now my chronic diarrhea will go away. We'll see. And if it doesn't you'll be sure to know!

The Boyfriend Is The Best

2011-05-15T21:02:00.002-04:00

It is my friend FancyKatLover's birthday and I really wanted to do something for him that he would enjoy; however, since I have been dropped from my car insurance and am also utterly terrified to get behind the wheel again, I knew that that thing would have to be done long distance.

So I decided I was going to make him a Keyboard Cat based music video. And The Boyfriend had to be in it.

AND HE WAS.

Looking back, this shouldn't have boggled my mind. The Boyfriend is great. I know this. But everything is solidified now.

I came up with a band called The Catz. Yes, with a fucking Z. Di was on lead guitar, Bart on drums, me on keyboard, and The Boyfriend on the all important tambourine. I thought it would take some convincing. I figured it would go:

Me: Here's your tambourine.

The Boyfriend: What am I supposed to do with this?

Me: Play it. It is integral to the band.

The Boyfriend: What band?

Me: Our band! The Catz!

The Boyfriend: The Cats?

Me: The CatZZZZZ!!!

The Boyfriend: Oh. Right.

Me: Okay, play.

The Boyfriend: Yeah, I don't really wanna...

Me: You don't wanna?

The Boyfriend: Not really...

Me: You don't wanna play tambourine in The Catz?

The Boyfriend: Eh...

Me: Do you have ANY idea how many people would literally kill to play the tambourine in The Catz? Do you?

The Boyfriend: ...

Me: Tens of people, The Boyfriend! TENS OF PEOPLE!

Then I'd try to force him a little more and it wouldn't end up working out and not only would one of my incredibly accurate TV character references go unnoticed, but I wouldn't have been in the video either and it would have just been the cats and it would have been kind of funny but no where near as good.

But he was totally for it!

And I love him.

Also, it's FancyCatLover's birthday and he is one of the most fantastic friends that could ever exist. So there is that.

The Real Evil

2011-04-24T00:56:00.001-04:00

If you're unhappy with healthcare in America, well, first of all just be happy to be healthy. Second of all, direct your anger at the right places. I'm not saying I know exactly what goes on everywhere, but holy shit there is stuff going down that is regoddamndiculous.

This will be a meander away from me trying to be funny and just be me being really upset. But do carry on, I beg you.

Among many other duties at my job, I get medications approved for patients. That process alone, beyond just being frustrating and near impossible, is mind boggling when you really sit down and think about it. So, here's how that "works." You have insurance. You pay for that in some form or another. That insurance only covers so much of whatever you get. That insurance will also probably have some kind of prescription coverage with it. The insurance company then sets up a formulary--the drugs it deems appropriate for you, because, you know, they know you, your medical history, and are your doctor or at least think they are. If you need one of those prescriptions, you get it discounted.

But if your doctor, God forbid, prescribes something off formulary you have two choices: pay full price or your doctor has to attempt to get an authorization for that medication. That is where I come in. The pharmacy notifies us that the med isn't covered, and I have to call about 17 different numbers until I can get someone to fax me a form where I put down your information and answer their questions like what your diagnosis is and what you have tried and failed. If you haven't tried enough random medications that were cheap and just might have worked to save them money on this pricier one that your doctor who went to medical school has prescribed for you, the insurance company will refuse to cover the medication.

Isn't that fucking insane?

Despite that your doctor says, "I think you need Whatevercillin," since it costs $20 more than Whachamacallitumab which is sometimes used before stepping up to Whatevercillin, the insurance company INSISTS you try it. Possible reactions or the pain/sickness you'll deal with until you get to something that works be damned!

One of my favorite ones is when the insurance company asks if patients with like crippling arthritis who need an immune blocker have tried aspirin. OF FUCKING COURSE THEY'VE TRIED ASPIRIN! IT IS NOT FUCKING HELPING, OBVIOUSLY!

But it's a normal process, so my outrage at the whole process is kind of dulled.

It does, however, get really terrible when you look at specific cases and you see how some people are suffering.

We had this one lady with rheumatoid arthritis who had it for years. She'd tried a few things without improvement, so was going onto another med called Enbrel. In her history she had tried a drug called methotrexate. (By the way, methotrexate can give you cancer, but don't worry about that.) When this lady was on it she had an allergic reaction to it which caused her mouth to fill up with sores (like a lot of drugs in rheumatology, methotrexate kind of compromises your immune system). Uncomfortable to say the least. So over the course of her therapy after that, methotrexate was never used. Now, with a lot of the meds this office prescribes, methotrexate is prescribed along with them because it makes them more affective. Understandable. So the insurance company, in the prior authorization, wants to know if she'll be taking methotrexate along with Enbrel. No, we tell them, she is allergic to it, as documented. Problem is, that documentation is from years ago. Insurance company says they won't pay for Enbrel (literally THOUSANDS of dollars, but the evil of pharmaceutical companies is another story) unless she's tried and failed methotrexate again. So the doctor is forced to put her on it again. Her mouth swells up. The pain she's in from her disease (which isn't getting taken care of because she can't go on the Enbrel) is only intensified because of these crazy mouth sores. Thanks a lot, insurance.

The thing I am currently dealing with that sparked this whole rant, though, brought me to tears this week. We have this man with ankylosing spondylitis, one of the most unfair medical conditions I have ever heard of. The disease basically causes your spine and pelvis to fuse so you can't move and often causes a curve in the spine. This patient just came to us a month ago, referred by his primary care doctor, after they found that in one short year the man had LOST SIX INCHES OF HEIGHT.

So the doctor says he needs to be on Remicade, an infusible medication. We start the prior authorization process (because Remicade is like a bagillion dollars) and they take FOREVER to get back to me, so I call them. Turns out they "never got it."

This is a clever trick that is all too often played by insurance companies. If there is any way for them to hold onto their money a little longer, they will. A patient who used to work for one of the bigger companies in Ohio said they were instructed to literally throw every third claim on the floor. That sounds like crazy exaggeration, but with the number of things that I get fax confirmations on that were "never received," I believe it one hundred percent.

Anyway, I send things again (it is possible, I guess, that it got lost or whatever) and call for confirmation. A week or so later it comes back denied saying that the patient hasn't tried and failed and disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs). Another thing the insurance companies LOVE to do is waste paper. They fax us the denial and then also mail it to us. So I get the fax which is just like "DENIED, MOTHER FUCKER! TAKE THAT!!!" but then the mail comes and it says that they are denying our prior authorization for use of Remicade for his RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS. WHAT THE FUCK, ASSHOLES, THAT IS NOT HIS DIAGNOSIS!!!

Yet another trick those fucks use is screwing stuff up like that on "accident." And, of course, only putting that information in the mailed letter, so if we were a bigger office it might get skimmed over that the denial was based ON THE WRONG DIAGNOSIS because the info was already received in another form.

(Side note: If you think I'm over reacting based on this single case, consider the prior auth I did two weeks ago for a patient to up his Humira from once every two weeks to once a week. I sent everything off and then a few days later I got both a denial and another request to do another prior auth, so, confused, I called the medical review at the insurance company who said the second request was sent on accident (so if I had just done it, I would have been wasting more time and would have never gotten a response) and that the denial was because, quote, "Well, all the requirements are here, but whoever at your office filled out the form checked that the patient would not be taking Humira as a weekly dose, so you'll have to do an appeal." An appeal for a clerical error. As the woman went on to tell me that the appeal process would take fifteen to thirty days from the time received, I skimmed the form that "whoever at my office" (me) filled out and found the question CLEARLY marked with a yes. I interrupted her, "Um, I filled this out and I'm looking at it right now, and it's marked yes." She goes on to tell me that I still have to appeal because they have a no on file. I say, "Really? So the patient gets penalized because someone THERE messed up? I don't understand how the fax of the form that I filled out is somehow different than the one in front of me." And she says she has a photo copy of it right there and...oh...wait...someone must have read this wrong...yeah, I see it...that does say yes. So she's all, "I'll fix this and call you back this afternoon." So, if I hadn't pushed it and forced her to look at that form, it would have been maybe another month. Tell me that wasn't on purpose.)

But back to my dude with the AS and the denial based on the WRONG DIAGNOSIS.

I call and tell them that he's been denied based on a diagnosis that was not written anywhere on the original form I sent them and has never been in his medical history. They say I have to appeal anyway. I'm not all that surprised because infusibles usually require appeals. So I write up this letter saying that the guy HAS ANKYLOSING SPONDYLITIS in big fucking bold, underlined, non-comic-sans font and go on to explain that Remicade is considered first line therapy for the disease according to the FDA (who, by the way, might be the biggest fuckers of all, but they can be handy to quote in a jam like this) and that DMARDs are not an accepted treatment for this guy's disease as they have not shown to affect the spine. I also mention that this guy is SIX INCHES SHORTER THAN HE WAS A YEAR AGO and that this kind of disease progression warrants treatment with an infusible. I mean, the guy is stooped over so much he's rocking back on his heals to look forward and can't move his head

independent of his body.

And what do they do?

Nothing.

I wait and wait and I hear nothing.

So I call and the woman tells me it's been denied (but apparently no one thought to tell us. Really, we should have been expecting it, though, right?). I say, "Even though the medications you are requiring him to be on are not FDA approved for his condition?" She tells me that the insurance company has its own policies about drug approval. "And those policies are based on what?" I ask, "Could you require him to have failed birth control for his condition too?" This might not have been fair; SHE didn't deny him, the company did, but frankly I was mad, not to mention that I was so deeply seeded into this fucked up world that reason didn't really have a place in my brain anymore. And she took it in stride anyway by ignoring me and repeating about the policy thing.

So now the doctor is trying to do a peer to peer evaluation of the thing even though they told us we couldn't because she is a badass and no one tells he what to do! Peer to peers by insurance companies are equally stupid, by the way, because you call them to set it up and they call back like three times to confirm different call back dates and eventually end with, "We will call on Thursday or Friday between the hours of 8am and 6pm. If the doctor is not available we will set up another time." Then the doctor has to talk to someone at the insurance company who is considered a "peer" but is usually someone who is not allowed to practice anymore (for whatever reason like fondling his patients or killing too many of them) and who works for the insurance company so is not inclined to be impartial.

Anyway, that's where that is at. And I am really upset.

I don't know how involved the government should be in healthcare considering the FDA is run by the government and they are LITERALLY ON THE TAKE (I'll tell you about that later), but someone needs to be monitoring the insurance companies. I think this case may warrant being brought up to the insurance board.

Property Virgins

2011-04-08T19:00:00.001-04:00

Disclaimer: I made a few pictures for this post, but only finished two of them. They're here and boring. Don't hate me.

The Boyfriend and I have been watching a lot of HGTV. That’s Home & Garden Television for all you people with lives. Basically, it’s a channel devoted to renovating, redesigning, selling, and buying property and the way-too-wealthy North Americans who can do such things. Seriously, it can get pretty gross, but that doesn't make me love it any less because good TV is good TV.

There is this one show on HGTV, though, that focuses on people that we can sometimes relate to called Property Virgins. The premise is to take what is usually a couple and follow them on the search for their first home. The first thing the producers do is cast a couple. A terrible couple. The casting call is something like this:

Looking for a male, mid to late twenties, completely unaware of anything around him, devoid of personality, and dumb as shit. He is to be cast alongside a female, early to mid twenties, extremely picky, and uses the word “hate” with reckless abandon as in, “I know I said I wanted hardwood floors, but I hate this color.” Also, be mixed race but act stereotypically white (which isn’t a problem because most of the episodes are shot in Canada where everyone is white on the inside anyway.)

Then the show’s host, Sandra Rinomato, Canadian Realty Queen, takes the couple to a neighborhood that they would consider ideal. She then proceeds to tell them they cannot now nor ever afford to live there, setting up the theme of every episode: “Look, you’re dumb and have no concept of realty or money in general, and you’re going to have to stop being prissy bitches and learn to compromise.”

Sandra then asks the couple of Twinkies what their list of demands is and shows them three places that are within their price range that meet some of those demands (which really allows them to focus on the one thing that the place doesn't have), but doesn’t tell them the actual cost—she makes them guess! It’s AWFUL. The couple is always confused and embarrassed about this part and usually guesses too high, which ends up working in their favor so they’re like, “$600,000? That’s not so bad!” Oh, Sandra, you sneaky, sneaky Canadian.

Needless to say, The Boyfriend and I are dying to be on the show. We’ve even considered moving to Toronto just to be publically humiliated by Sandy herself. The problem is…we’re poor. And snow is the worst thing in the world. So, we will have to make do with our imaginations.

Sandra would narrate over wide shots of the city we're looking to buy in, "In Anytown, The Boyfriend and Lordess of the Blog are discovering homebuying isn’t a walk in the park. Both are college graduates, but they may as well be using their Bachelors of Arts in English as toilet paper. They are both currently working outside of their fields in dead-end, part-time positions and living in a one bedroom garden apartment—that’s the quaint way of saying 'underground.'"

I'd go, "I’m a receptionist at a doctor’s office."

He'd go, "I’m a service representative at the local university."

And the producers would be annoyed that we don't have children or dogs and would make us improvise, "We have two little ones at home, Bart and Di."

"They’re assholes," The Boyfriend would say and that would get edited out because Canadians don't swear.

Then we would go over our wishlist:

to not be living directly below anyone else so we don’t have to breathe in their smoke or hear them rearrange their furniture every night
no risk being held up at gunpoint in our own building
no flooding
have a pilot light that the landlord has to illegally light because the gas company refused to do it for not being up to code

Sandra would say, "I’m taking them to their ideal neighborhood of Westershearbrambleberryhiggins Park to begin the humiliation process. So, The Boyfriend, Lordess of the Blog, what do you think houses go for around here?"

Me: Way too much.

The Boyfriend: Yeah, why are we here?

Me: I cleaned houses once and those places could have fit in these garages.

The Boyfriend: We would never expect to even walk these streets without getting arrested for looking suspicious.

Sandra: Try 1 to 2 million.

Me: Is she listening to us?

The Boyfriend: Maybe our budget got lost in translation.

Sandra: Hockey.

Me: Right…

Sandra: So these places are a little above your budget of…um…$28.58?

The The Boyfriend would pick a penny up from the street, "$28.59, sucker!" And then he would get arrested in Westershearbrambleberryhiggins Park and we would have to charm the mounties to get him released from custody.

So, obviously, we will never be on Property Virgins, but a girl can dream.

The Worst Thing About Going To The Gynecologist

2011-01-21T21:41:00.000-05:00

I totally deprived you guys of this wonderfulness. I started it and never finished. Here's what I had.

The worst thing about going to the gynecologist is that, after the whole thing, you technically end up buying her dinner.

Also The Boyfriend calling her the vaginologist isn’t that great either. A nice thing about this trip, though, was that she surprised me by telling me they only do pap smears every other year now so this year I drove an hour to Newark to wait thirty minutes in the waiting room and another thirty minutes naked save for a paper gown and socks on a table in a cold-ass exam room, fanning my vagina which had conversely broken out into nervous sweats just to have a midwife come in and stick a finger inside me for about half a minute. I feel so used.

The best thing about the whole experience was that she told me, “You’re funny” about seventeen times. AND I didn’t even have to use any of my utterly hilarious gynecological humor on her that I’d spent the earlier week coming up with. I felt only a little cheated not getting to ask her any of the questions I’d been mulling over while she cranked open my nanner so as to distract myself like, “How do my labia compare to other labia? You know, aesthetically speaking?”

Warning: I'm Naked In This One!

2010-12-22T00:43:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm finally selling out to try and get internet famous; I'm posting nude photos.

Well, drawings.

I've been working on this post for a while, but you're going to look at the following pictures and think I not only lost my ability to walk, but to draw too. Well, listen here, Internets, it takes an awful lot of effort to get to the scanner. I had to scoot all the way across this queen size bed and suffer a super wedgie (front and back) to do it, so deal. Then I was so tired after I uploaded these, that I only turned up the midtones, so they look rather awful, but it's the gist I needed to get across to you.

So, you should know by now that I can't deal with being gross. These means I will risk certain death to get clean. Or at least risk genuinely breaking my pelvis to do so. The other day The Boyfriend was sleeping as is usual because he works at night and I was feeling particularly grimy. Me experience showering has been, since I've been broken, lackluster. The Boyfriend helps me in, I sit in a plastic lawn chair and scrub, shave the parts of my legs I can reach (if I'm not exhausted at that point) and then he helps me back out much to my hip's dismay at being moved in such a weird way. After two weeks of waiting for him to get up before getting my uber-Italian oil off, I thought "Hey, I should be handicapable enough to do this on my own now!" The short story is: I am. The long story is, well, this:

I got in without a hitch pretty much. My heart raced at the thought of slipping and impaling myself on the faucet, but that didn't happen, just like I knew it wouldn't. I was very happy to get clean:

After washing up and drying off a little I celebrated: "Fuck yeah."

So then it was time to get out, so I grabbed onto the faucet thingy and tried to stand:

Much to my dismay, The Boyfriend was not right there to grab on to:

A new route would have to be found. Maybe I could lunge forward?

Nope. So I figured I could swing my leg over the edge, straddle the tub, then swing the other leg over and stand up on the floor in reach of my crutches.

The caption for the previous picture is "OH MY FUCK!" When I realized that my muscles were still too full of blood (an "internal scab" which is the grossest thing I've ever heard) to work properly, I knew I wasn't going to be lifting my leg out. But there was another option:

I could sit on the edge of the tub (slipperier and narrower than one would expect) and then shift myself over to the toilet and stand up from there. I reached:

But did not have the length or upper body strength necessary to do so. There was only a single other option, and that was not to call The Boyfriend. I was an independent woman. I would do this on my own:

And I fucking did:

Hell to the yeah:

With the utmost expertize, I lowered myself flat onto the bathroom floor, legs in the air and propped up on the tub. I was a fucking miracle worker. The only thing left was to shimmy backward into the wall and slide my leg down.

After a few choice words I was free at last, free at last!

And that's how I got out of the bathtub on my own that one time without shattering my pelvis or impaling myself on the faucet.

Helen Keller, eat your heart out.

And from there, Robot Unicorn came and flew me off to heaven:

THE END.

There is an unexplained beeping coming from somewhere

2010-12-18T01:18:00.000-05:00

and I can't even find the fucking thing because, of yeah, I can't fucking walk. I can't go Christmas shopping. I can't go see my best friend graduate. One of these cats is driving me fucking insane because he can now get on the kitchen counter because our kitchen table was moved too close to the counter and I can't move it away because, of yeah, I CAN'T FUCKING WALK! Also, I can't stop the cat because I can't go knock him off. I have a squirt bottle, but that does little good when he hides behind the fridge. He also gets up on the dresser and scratches at the plastic on our fucking shitty windows and lets the cold in while I'm trying to sleep and I have to spray him to stop again and wake up very three fucking seconds and then I have to get out of bed and shut the door which takes like twenty minutes and I have to get Bart out of the room too who hasn't done a single thing wrong because he's just fat and stupid, but not bad, but he doesn't move when I tell him to so I have to yell at him and smack him with a shirt and I feel horrible but I'm just so goddamned tired and I hurt so fucking much that I can't sleep anyway and I'm alone at night all the time because The Boyfriend has to work so much and I'm awake all by myself during the day and I CAN'T FUCKING WALK so I can barely cook anything to eat and I've been constipated for the last two weeks and finally took a laxative and shit my guts out all day today, over five times today, and I got my period because I had to stop taking my birth control and of course it's like two weeks early so it's going to last now for two weeks and now I'm going to have menstrual cramps on top of everything else which is great timing because I have like 3 painkillers left and I'm off the birth control because of this stupid blood thinner that I have to inject in my stomach every fucking day and it hurts so much it's almost worse than my hip and I can't even laugh because it feels like my insides are trying to explode out of me when I do, so nothing can be funny and sometimes I sneeze on accident and sneezing is the worst thing ever, except it's not worse than just feeling like a useless piece of shit who can't even shower herself which I couldn't do today because The Boyfriend got called into work early and of course it's the day that I shit 5 times and got my period and my vagina is all mucus-y and I am just angry all the time and feel like poop and want to pass out after washing three dishes and don't think I'm ever going to get better.

And ya know what? I'm sick of people telling me I'm lucky. I FUCKING KNOW. I SAW THE GODDAMNED SUV SLAM INTO ME!!!

Also, THIS WASN'T MY FAULT. FUCK THE POLICE!!! SERIOUS-FUCKING-LY! They fucking charged me because I was the easy one to pin it on, because they knew very fucking well I would be too hurt and too inexperienced to go to court.

Sigh...

And if any of you don't agree you can go fuck yourselves because if I can't rant on my blog then where the hell else am I supposed to do it?

u

g

h

I cried today for the first time since this happened.

Today was just a bad day.

Thanks for sticking around til the end. This won't happen again.

Promise.

Part II: Trauma!

2010-12-07T19:04:00.002-05:00

You think it’s going to be horrifying to have your vagina flopped out in front of a room full of strangers. Truth is, you’re not even going to realize it until you’re having a conversation about your improperly inserted catheter with a nurse an hour later.

I had on a neck brace and was on a backboard so I had little sense of setting when I was wheeled into the hospital, but I did know that the people designing the hospital knew that the ceilings had to be interesting because this was the view a lot of people were going to have. There were like blown up children’s paintings up there. It got my mind off things for a few seconds.

I was wheeled into this large room with a million people in it. The EMT had prepped me for this—he said they were taking me straight to trauma and there’d be an onslaught of people to attack me. I like that he built it up so much because, like with a lot of movies, it didn’t live up to the expectations he’d set so I can look back and say, “eh, not so bad.”

But the questions certainly did come from everywhere. They asked my name and date of birth and then this glorious thing happened: people started getting my name right! And they used it a lot. I believe in what Dale Carnegie says—everyone’s favorite word is their own name. I got asked for a contact number for someone. I spat out Mom’s name and her home phone number—literally the only number that I actually know. I got really upset because I didn’t know if she had The Boyfriend’s number. I started conjuring up ways to contact him at work and the different avenues we’d have to go through at the University to get to him. I immediately decided no one was good enough at Google except for me to contact him. All was lost.

Then I realized they were cutting off my clothes. I only knew that was what was going on because the EMT told me that would happen. They were either so marvelous at it that I didn’t notice (creepy) or I was in so much pain that I didn’t notice. Oh, did I tell you I was in pain?

This was probably where it hurt the most because they kept rolling me and moving me. They warned me before hand that they’d have to roll me and it was going to hurt and when they did I distinctly remember going, “Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit” and then promptly apologized. Someone told me, sincerely, “Well, you handled that significantly better than most people.”

They cut off my shirt—again, very impressively—and asked if I wanted to keep it because, guess what, it was my Lil Abner shirt with the signatures of the cast and crew on it. The musical that I had the female lead in! Cut up! Arg! The question of keeping it was weird to me, like it didn’t matter because I just didn’t want to be dying, so I was like “Whatever…it’s okay, you can throw it out,” but mostly I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone. NAKED GIRL ON TABLE WITH FRACTURED PELVIS DIDN’T WANT TO INCONVENIENCE ANYONE. Story of my goddamned life.

After they got my pants off a woman with a glove leaned over me from my feet and said, “I’m really sorry honey, but I have to make sure you’re not bleeding internally, so I’m going to have to insert my finger in your bottom.” What a nice way to say you’re going to STICK YOUR HAND UP MY BUTT!!! But honestly, it wasn’t the worst thing ever. In fact, I barely felt it.

What I did feel was the four sets of hands prodding at and peeling back my vagina to get the catheter in. When the woman told me they were going to have to do that I must have looked utterly distraught because she apologized profusely. In my mind, tube in urethra = most intense pain ever. I said, “I promise I’ll just get up and walk to the bathroom! I promise!” She told me I wouldn’t be walking for a long while. Ugh. I gave in. Then they shoved it in. Again, not terrible, just uncomfortable. I imagine I didn’t feel the full pain of a lot of this because my hip was excruciating. Someone said it was wrong so they took it out and redid it. Someone else said it was wrong so they took it out and redid it again. I was thinking someone better Google “pee-hole” before they do that a fourth time because I love my vagina the way it is and never intended on piercing it. Meanwhile a separate group of people were at each of my arms sticking me and taking vitals and asking me questions, but none of it mattered when so many people were prodding my lady place.

Finally, they were like, “That’s gotta be it, right guys? I mean, we can’t miss that many times! Harhar!” And someone was like, “There’s no urine in the bag!” And someone else was all, “Flush it!” So they ran some fluid into what was supposed to be my bladder and after the thing that was supposed to happen didn’t happen, they were like, “Guess you just don’t have to pee!”

Great.

So I went and got a cat scan. I think. It could have been an MRI. All I really know is that the machine looked expensive and instead of the tech giving me directions on when to breathe, the machine did, so I’m positive it was expensive. Again, I contemplated asking to forgo it, but knew that would get me nowhere.

I ended up in another room, a quiet room, a room where only two other people at the most would be with me. It was nice. There was a curtain separating me from commotion. I really enjoyed this—for like two minutes. Then I could feel all the pain and discomfort. Blah. Some nurses came in.

Sidebar: The nurses I encountered at Grant Medical Center were some of the nicest people I have ever had the pleasure of coming in contact with. I feel so blessed to have been in a place with RNs, LPNs, and like all the other nurse-type titles that were that incredibly sweet. They wanted nothing more than to make me comfortable and smile at me. It was amazing.

Sidebar II: It was really nice to see some near-equality in the male to female ration of nurses, at least in my limited experience there. I saw probably 30-40% male nurses to the women that took care of me and that was cool.

The male nurse who started taking care of me made me feel really calm. Asked me about who was coming for me. He went to make sure someone was. Then a doctor came in.

OK, so I work for a doctor. I know they are not all sucky, but my experience with them totally was at the hospital. This guy was actually an orthopedic surgeon who had looked at the x-rays. He explained that it looked like I had fractured my pelvis and what went along with that. He was pretty cold, but how can you not be when throwing around medical terms? It’s a good thing I’m a fucking genius because otherwise I would have been confused.

I listened to him intently, I didn’t really ask for clarification, I was good the whole damn time he talked. Then he asks, “Is there anything at all I can do for you to make you more comfortable, Ashley?”

And my mind lights up, “I have this really intense urge to pee, but I can’t really go. I think this catheter may be wrong.”

His response, “Catheters make you feel like you have to pee,” and totally dismisses me and goes.

I was really angry because I knew something was not right but now I was totally alone. Every time someone passed by I hoped they’d come in, but it seemed to go on forever that I was alone. I had to pee so badly and I was still shivering so much that I thought all that was actually causing my hip pain. Finally the male nurse comes back and asks if he can get me something—I practically cut him off, “I have to pee something fierce!”

And a female nurse is walking by or had come in with him or he got her, I’m not sure as the urine was reaching my eyeballs at this point, and she checks it out. “Honey,” she asks, “Did a man put this in?”

“Uh, there were like twenty people, so I don’t really know. They did it three time”

Only a slight bit of hyperbole there.

She takes it, slips it in again, INSTANT FUCKING RELIEF!!! It was peeing without peeing. It was an empty bladder without movement. It was the best I ever felt. I almost cried thanking her.

Now the only question is this: What the hell did they actually flush out???

Coming up next: Part III: Visitors!

Guess Where I Was! or Part I: The Accident

2010-12-06T21:03:00.004-05:00

OK, if you’re reading this, you probably already know, but I was in the hospital! I could probably write several blogs with very different feelings to them: the sentimental, thank God I’m alive blog, the funny, everyone at the hospital is so invasive blog, the I can’t believe healthcare is so expensive blog, but instead I’m just going to shove it all into one. And try for the invasive one the most because I’ll get to say vagina a whole lot in that one.

Friday I was headed to Pataskala from Columbus to meet Minigan, a good writer, better friend and the best at being extremely hyperactive, to have a writing meeting. We hadn’t met in weeks, and were supposed to the Monday before, but The Boyfriend got really sick and I had to take care of him instead. So, if you think about it, this whole thing is totally their fault.

Anyway, I was on 71 and had already passed an accident, but once I got to 70 (a major highway just after rush hour) I felt free and clear. To not be an asshole, I switched over to the left, “fast” lane so that the people coming on from and getting off on the really closely spaced onramps would have the least amount of people driving in front of them. I am too nice for my own good. Then the cars in front of me, way in front of me, put on their brake lights. So I tapped mine too. Then I realized they were still stopping. Like, a lot. And hard. So I had to match it. It looked like I was going to ram the car in front of me, but that didn’t happen.

Instead, my car with its week-old, new brake job (oh yeah, I just put over $500 into my car, mainly for brakes so this exact thing wouldn’t happen), pulled to the left and spun me sideways. I remember actually thinking, “Oh, this is bad,” as it happened. That, I think, is one of the weirdest things. How, you know something bad is happening, at least in my experience, and you know you have little to no control, but instead of freaking out, you are completely calm and just take it. Because that’s what I did. I was just sitting there, seeing the road before me disappear and be replaced with the meridian, and thinking, “Oh, dear, this is a bit of a pickle.” I hoped that I would end up driving off into the meridian and stop in the grass. That didn’t happen.

Instead, whoever was behind me slammed into the driver’s side door. That was a shitty turn of events.

I had barely been going 60 and had been stopping, so I was going slower. Now, I admit, my car was old and little and poopy, but it didn’t hit the car in front of it. So what the fuck was the guy behind me doing that made him hit me? Texting, I bet.

There was a split second, though, when I spun around and was still moving forward on the highway, but very slowly. I would have come to a stop. It would have been okay. But in that nugget of a moment that I was still in mid-turn I caught a glimpse of the driver’s side mirror and what was behind me. Then, sideways, I happened to see basically a grate and some headlights pretty much next to me. And in that second I knew it was going to hit me. And again, totally calm, I just thought, “Darn.” Why doesn’t my mind swear and go crazy when actual horrific shit is about to happen?

So then it hit me. Literally. I was conscious through this whole thing, but this was the split second that it got fuzzy. I couldn’t accept what was going on, and I just had to go, get out of the car. I’ve had a lot of nightmares about car accidents, so I thought maybe I was in one of those. Maybe this wasn’t happening and I’d just wake up next to The Boyfriend in a cold sweat and everything would be fine.

After I fumbled with the seatbelt and whimpered because I couldn’t see (I’d find out later that my glasses came flying off and ended up in the middle of the highway which, by the way, I HAVE ON RIGHT NOW! That’s pretty cool, ya gotta admit) I went to open the already open (because it was crushed) door and step out. My brain, always cool and collected, said, “Okay, so that just happened. Now, you’ve seen a lot of crime dramas—you know what happens next. This is when the car explodes, so you need to get away from it.” So I tried. I took a step out to go. But how the hell was I supposed to know my legs didn’t work?

I ended up on the ground, wedged in the crook of the door, facing the back of the car. Without the open door, I would have been flat on the ground. Then there was this woman. Actually, no I think she was like an angel. Really. Because she was the first person there and she kept calling me “sweetie” and she was so nice and every time I think about her I cry. I told her we had to move because cars were going to come and hit us. She told me the cars all stopped. She got me a blanket. She held my hand.

And that’s when I knew I was going to die.

Never in my life have I thought I was going to die. I consider it my intense egotism, but I just don’t think God will let me die this young and with so much left to do. I don’t do crazy things because I have that nonsense knowledge, but it’s really just never seemed that realistic to me. I know people die and that someday I will, but not me NOW. Except then, on the pavement, with strangers around me and my car in a mass of metal, I knew I was going to die. There was no other option. Not because it even hurt, I just thought, “This is it.”

Then a random man who happened to be an EMT came and assessed me. He got my info, he made me feel a little safer. On the other hand, though, about three other people, old white men btw, were walking around, shaking their heads, going “Oh my God, I can’t believe this” and freaking me right the fuck out. They asked me if I could move. No, 60 year old man, I cannot, and please don’t try to move me because you’ll probably kill me. DON’T YOU WATCH TV? DON’T MOVE THE VICITM!

But that woman was there and talking to me and that was okay.

Then the actual paramedics came. And guess what. No one got my name right. Ever. Not once. It is a good damn thing I was conscious and could repeat “ASH-LEEEEEEEY!” to them over and over when they kept questioning, “Melanie? Veronica? Pete?”

They took off the blanket the nice woman gave me, they took off my coat. They took off my sweater. They made me lay flat and my hip was so mad that I am pretty sure I swore because my actual voice is nowhere near as calm as my inner voice. I started shaking so badly from the cold and pain I thought I was going to snap everything I owned and passed out. I repeated “Ashley” a couple more times in case they forgot again and hypothermia had taken me.

I had on a neck brace, I was on a backboard, and they were getting ready to put me in the ambulance. This is the part where I thought, “Maybe I’m not going to die” and then the other rational part of me kicked in and my brain exploded into, “God, no DON’T PUT ME IN THE FUCKING AMBULANCE!!! IT’S TOO FUCKING EXPENSIVE!!!!!!!!!!!! Can’t that nice lady drive me? Or how bout I take myself? Seriously, guys, I don’t have $1,000 for a cab ride!” Then, on top of that, they decided to take me to Grant which was a billion miles further away than Licking Memorial, so then I was like “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!” because they charge you mileage in those things.

And then my mind calmed down and the guy in the back of the ambulance with me was like, “What was your name again? Angie?”

Close enough.

P.S. Oxygen is effing terrible. Breathing on my own is something I prefer much more.

Coming up next: Part II: Trauma!

There is apparently this show

2010-11-19T22:06:00.001-05:00

in the U.K. called Over The Rainbow in which Sir (I think he's a sir) Andrew Llyod Weber and the whole of the United Kingdom picks an actress/singer to perform in ALW's new stage rendition of The Wizard of Oz. The show consists mainly of, and I can say this with complete authority as I have watched no fewer than three whole youtube clips, a gaggle of sub-par but realistic women performing "mashups" of pop songs with weird introductions of classic show tunes, random shots of Graham Norton pretending to play instruments, and Sir Weber as he looks thoroughly disappointed and mouths things at nobody in particular and also looks like a cat.

The show also features the search for a dog to play the part of Toto. On this the knighted composer had this to say:

A big sticking point for me, this was ... This is what the BBC wanted and I had to point out to them that as a cat man, this was not something that I was very happy about at all. The whole thing fills me with extreme concern. I might insist on having a cat on the programme, because I think the BBC as a public service broadcaster have got to give equal time in my view to cats.

He's my hero and this is my very favorite new thing ever.

A taste (also...um, Glee?):

Some Things A Lot of People Don't Know About Me

2010-10-23T21:35:00.000-04:00

Check out Mags and Mrs. Brown for the same topic.

I'm going to do a little list because I can't think of one, overall, THING except maybe weird sexual practices and I feel like I'm not allowed to talk about those.

1. I am hot. Like, really hot. Seriously, you don't even know. You should see me in knee socks and nothing else. Actually, you shouldn't if you want to live past that moment because you'd melt and die from the sheer hotness. I mean, Mr. Brown just took a picture of me and I wasn't ready, but I'm not concerned because it's going to come out fantastic because I am so hot.

2. I don't really like mac n cheese. Just kidding! I fucking LOVE mac n cheese. The real number 2 is I am a goddamn laugh a minute.

3. I am terrified of everything. I don't keep my fears a secret, but they're way more intense than even I make them out to be. Sometimes I jump up when I'm in bed alone and go turn on the light because, in the light, the scary things can't get me.

4. I believe I am wholly responsible for Princess Diana's death. This is the first time I've ever said this outside of my head. Never even written it to myself. I know, I'm a freak, but I totally believe this. So, here's the story:

I've had phases of being extremely superstitious. When I was ten I was going through one of those phases. When I was that age I was also dabbling in other kinds of beliefs and was really interested in witchcraft and sombre poetry and the like. You know, regular kid stuff. Anyway, I distinctly remember being in the living room, sitting on the couch, it being very quiet, and I was thinking. Really hard.

And I wished myself dead.

I wasn't unhappy in the least, and immediately afterward I took it back. I think I did it because I was interested in what happened after living and that junk. So I quickly took it back because, obviously, it was going to come true because I'm just that powerful and there was some all-powerful entity just waiting to bow to the every whim of ten-year-old me. And then, what feels like seconds later in my mind, but could have been days, I learned about Princess Diana dying. So many people were so upset. And then I realized that my wish was too powerful to just disintegrate, but it couldn't be used on me because of course, I had overruled it, so whatever force was going to grant my wish HAD to use it on someone, and that someone was her.

I killed the Princess of Wales. Killed her dead.

And, to this day, I still believe that. I still wish now that I had been quick and thoughtful enough to take back my wish-o-death and protect everyone, but I wasn't. I was a dumb kid, playing with a power I couldn't fathom. And for that, all of England had to suffer. And I've never told anybody except for you, internet.

So, number 4 is really I am totally, bat shit crazy.

Badass Of The Week

2010-10-17T11:19:00.001-04:00

This is something I posted on a blog a while back and just felt like reposting today.

The following is an imitation in the style of badassoftheweek.com as that is a legitimate form of writing, I swear.

Colleen Faherty Brown

Those glasses are for your protection.

Interest in bicycling peaks annually some time in mid-summer when all of America tunes in to one of the twelve hundred ESPNs to catch a glimpse of a single-nutted American hero fly past all those beret-wearing, baguette-eating, complete-scrotum-having Frenchies in a blur of yellow and wheels, and they probably should because Lance Armstrong really is sweet like that. But what those couch potatoes watching him on television from the comfort of their sweet little suburban homes fail to realize is that Colleen Brown, who could end Lance Armstrong’s existence with a nonchalant, sideways glance, reducing him and his Trek Madone SL to mere skid marks that Alberto Contador wouldn’t even notice, is actually the most badass cyclist to ever set wheels to the motherfucking pavement.

Born in the Appalachian Ohio wilderness amongst man-eating mountain lions and equally-human-consuming bears, Colleen’s ability to kick wildlife ass and reach speeds exceeding eighty miles an hour were ingrained from the moment she popped out of the womb, which, by the way, she did all on her own. With a whopping seventeen brothers and nineteen sisters, the necessity for Colleen to fend for herself was, needless to say, intense; however, she managed to care for them all while still developing her own badassitude to the highest levels. She went on to mother two daughters of their own notable badassery, and grandmother a pirate. That’s right, I said a freaking pirate. The American government has even recognized her skills as she’s been employed by the state to kick the asses of jerk offs who are less than responsible caretakers of their elders. Also, she’s earned a black belt in tae kwon do. Three fucking times.

Thinking about who's getting the smackdown next.

But our story does not deal with the adolescence nor general sweetness of one Mrs. Colleen Brown despite how earth-shatteringly awesome the tales of her life are and how mindfucked you would be at hearing them. Oh no. The events that prove her to be the badass of the week took place on the balmy morning of Monday, August 9th, 2004.

Whilst riding along the quiet and often uninhabited bike trails of Nelsonville, Ohio with her husband and partner in badassery, David Brown, there occurred a moment that will live forever in badass history. You see, Colleen is not like the aforementioned sofa spuds who tune in and turn off when televised sports blow up. Colleen blows up. In the metaphorical, becoming active sense, of course, but she could literally not-so-spontaneously combust too, if she wanted, as she is a ninja and learned that skill during her tutelage under some white-bearded Korean martial arts master whose name I won’t repeat to you unless you actually want to be hunted down in your sleep and have your life stripped away three days after the fact from the kwon su ping which loosely translates to “palm fist of death by diarrhea.” And Colleen would take you all down with her if she chose to do so while blowing up, but she will allow you to go on living your measly little existence for now because she’s gracious like that. So, Colleen bikes. Not wussy, go for a ride every week or so bikes; Colleen hardcore, spandex shorts, thousand dollar bicycle, millions of miles every day bikes. And she doesn’t break a sweat. Or get tired. It’s just what she does.

On the aforementioned date, Colleen was minding her own business, riding down the trail and just generally being awesome when some motherfucking, batshit crazy, envy induced calygreyhound ran out of the brush and attacked her. That’s right, the mythical medieval beast you only heard of just now. Turns out it’s real, and you didn’t even know it fake existed, did you? Well, it does, real exist that is. The calygreyhound is one fucked up amalgamation of some of the craziest animals on earth with a wildcat’s head with throat-ripping fangs, a stag’s body for speed and antlers for bowel shredding, both eagle claws and ox hooves, and a lion’s tail just for good measure.

Artist rendition of the calygreyhound as this ass is too much of a puss to be caught on film.

This thing went fucking nuts on Colleen because, while most people don’t know anything about the calygreyhound, even less know that it has an insatiable thirst for awesomeness. Residing solely in the sparse forests of Oxford, England and feasting on the snaggletoothed crumpet-guzzlers the British Isles are forced to pass off as “awesome” but really only qualify as “sub-par okay,” this calygreyhound, later found to be named Pete, was drawn to Ameri-fucking-ca and the one and only Colleen Brown when it caught a whiff of awesomeness in its purest form.

Now, while bikes are wonderful modes of transport, when a thirteen hundred pound legendary monster powerhouses into the side of one going upwards of one hundred and fifty two miles an hour as Colleen usually does, it’s bad news. Colleen was thrown from what became a rolling mass of spikes and titanium into the pavement. Her hip was immediately shattered, shoulder separated, a joint was popped out of place in her spine, and she suffered the expected bumps and bruises that come along with assault by fabled beast. But that wasn’t stopping her. Colleen stood on her broken hip, thrust her shoulder back into its socket without even a grimace of pain and spat out a tooth like some cinematic action heroine. On crack. That calygreyhound messed with the wrong badass and it was time for some calygreyhound ball-crushing carnage.

In a flash, Colleen had ripped the now tangled spikes from her bicycle and fashioned a modern cyclist’s dream weapon of crazy pointy metal, delivering what can only be described as a cock-punch to the neck of the calygreyhound, slitting his throat open and showering the surrounding area in blood and bile. Pete didn’t even get a word in edgewise, not that “I’m lamer than a three-legged, blind kitten and a total douche bag to boot” would have subdued the skull-crushing rage Colleen mustered up at the sight of her destroyed two-wheeler. She was like a Tarantino version of Beowulf on acid or some shit, only sweeter because she’s a woman and has spiky hair. Innards were all over the trail and hanging from tree limbs SyFy Channel, overblown, B-list movie style, only it was real because, as everybody who knows knows, when the calygreyhound is decapitated, his insides spew from the newly made wound in a last, feeble attempt at revenge which Colleen stood against, a mangled mess herself, like it was a gentle spring shower and not a fucking torrent of legendary guts and gore.

Comforting this small child after choking out that croc with her bare hands.

David Brown stood there, amazed, knowing she didn’t need any help all along. He too suffered the shower of calygreyhound intestine and related juices but was mostly unharmed, the sheer greatness of Colleen’s dick-devastating action enough to bolster anyone’s spirits, even when covered in what is essentially monster corpse. He later made her the sweetest cookies that had ever been produced from any oven that you or I could ever imagine thanks to his comfort with his own masculinity and crazy ability to rock your fucking face off.

Now with two titanium rods in her back causing slightly limited mobility and occasional bouts of chills, the result and proof of her run in with Pete, Colleen lives and kicks asses in quiet, rural Ohio on the edge of the woods with her family, knowing she is all that stands between them and the carnivorous beasts of the wild. However, she’s not bothered, cautioning any creature that dares make its way up her porch steps with their own tailored version of a calygreyhound smack down be they wolf, gryphon, fire-breathing unicorn, or, the greatest predator of them all, raptor. You thought I was going to say “man” didn’t you? Well, no–raptor’s are fucking nuts and there’s no two ways about that. But just below them is certainly not “man”; that spot is reserved for Colleen Faherty Brown, total fucking badass.

I present to you

2010-10-02T13:13:00.000-04:00

my childhood home:

Le sigh.

That's My Favorite Man, Hands Down

2010-09-12T21:50:00.000-04:00

Did you know it’s almost Halloween? That’s my favorite holiday, hands down. But that also means it’s almost November which means it’s almost Harry Potter. That’s my favorite series, hands down. But that means it’s almost The Boyfriend's and my anniversary. What?

Yeah!

The Boyfriend is so fun that it feels like we just started dating, but I’m so comfortable with him that it feels like we’ve always been together, so some kind of actual marker is just…weird. With that in mind I guess it’s appropriate that neither of us know when we officially started dating. There’s no date, just a time frame of late November/early December.

In light of a milestone for The Boyfriend and me, I put together two tiny, true-to-life comics. I know three would have rounded it out and made more sense, but I am a busy woman, okay? I mean, it is Wedding Sunday on WE. Jeez.

How I See Things v How The Boyfriend Sees Things

Dear Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe,

2010-08-24T00:45:00.001-04:00

Hey! How are you? That’s good! I’m great.

That, Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe, is how all of our conversations should go. If you or I are feeling a bit creative then deviation from the script is acceptable, but too much adlibbing is distracting, hinders moving on to the next scene, and just downright pisses me off which is, by the way, one of the many things Patrick Swayze and I have in common. Yet, Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe, you still insist on being my John Leguizamo in To Wong Foo. How can we rectify this?

You see, Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe, I don’t dislike you. In fact, I enjoy your presence as my neighbor—you are quiet, soft spoken, and oldish, so you’re neither an annoyance nor a threat. Please know that this is not a letter of chastisement. What I am trying to say is I like you, Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe, and I’d like to keep it that way, so the only way that is going to be possible is if you modify your behavior.

Since you have told me on numerous occasions that you are an alcoholic, I will break down this behavior modification that I am suggesting into three, easy-to-follow rules.

Rule number one: Do not embark upon long conversations with me when I am clearly carrying heavy objects or if I have to prop my door open to have them. I appreciate, Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe, that you want to introduce The Boyfriend and me to other people in the building. This is one of the reasons that I like you. However, when both The Boyfriend and I are laden with bags of groceries, a box fan, and a vacuum cleaner it should be clear to you that stopping us in the parking lot in the middle of the hottest August day to introduce us to another tenant is not acceptable. Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe, Other Neighbor Who Happens To Also Have A Cat was clearly on his own mission from which he did not want to be deterred either! I suppose I cannot be too upset, Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe, because you were as unaware of Other Neighbor Who Happens To Also Have A Cat’s desire to be on his own way, so you did not intend to personally irritate us, but, to be clear, the fact that Other Neighbor Who Happens To Also Have A Cat cohabitates with a feline like The Boyfriend and I do does not make it okay to watch as we sweat and juggle awkward boxes.

I have to apologize here, Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe, because rule number one has two parts, which I know is not fair, especially at this early juncture in rule explanation, but I must insist that you not embark upon long conversations with me when I have to prop my door open to have them either. Last night is a good example of why. To be frank, my cats are kind of assholes. Because of this serious affliction, they tend to want to run out into the hallway which you, Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe, are across. This would not be such a big deal if it were not for our other neighbors who sometimes prop the shared doors to the outside open because they are not as concerned as you or I with being murdered, which is, I must say, another reason why I find you favorable as a neighbor.

Now, I understand; I was vacuuming at eight o’clock at night on a Saturday which can really be an annoyance. It’s much like your pipe which constantly lingers in the air, now that I think of it. So I can see why you knocked on my door to ask what that sound was, noting that, as an alcoholic, sometimes there are sounds which only occur in your head. You needed clarification, and I was glad to give it. I, embarrassed, told you I would gladly stop for the night as it was late, and that should have been where our conversation ended, Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe; however, it did not.

This is when I noticed you were drunk. You were kind enough, though, to also tell me in case I could not tell. It was, I admit, an impressive kind of drunk in which you were largely functional, but drunk nonetheless. In this state, Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe, you tend to be repetitive and again unaware that I desire to be inside and not having a conversation. I understand now that you do not pick up on the subtlety of “have a nice night” as a way to end a conversation, and for that I thank you as I will be sure to be more forceful if ever I find myself in a similar situation with you again, but the fact that both of my cats, at separate times, ran out and how annoyed I was at this should have also clued you in.

You should have also realized our conversation was going downhill when I had to remind you of my name more than once which brings me to rule number two: do not forget my name. I know your name, Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe. I may not be utilizing it here, but I know your full name. It is objectively insulting to forget someone’s name you have spoken with on more than one occasion. You cannot know that this is a problem I have dealt with my entire life, that my forgetability is incredibly high, but I am largely becoming intolerant of this fact. My name is not “Amy.” I admire your valiant efforts, plentiful as they are, at making my name Amy, even more than once in the same conversation, but no matter how many times you point at me, Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe, cock your head like a slightly retarded dog, and say, “Amy, right?” I am never going to give you a double thumbs up and answer, “Right!” I don’t even do double thumbs ups, Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe, so please, do not expect one. It would be better for both of us if you simply pretend you know my name and just not use any personal designation when addressing me. This is a problem which pains me slightly more than those in rule number one because I know you know The Boyfriend’s name seeing as you used it in our conversation last night which brings me to the third and final rule: above all, do not be creepy.

This is imperative, Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe. Creepiness will not be tolerated. Do not ask me if The Boyfriend is home when I answer the door at night. Your intentions are largely unknown to me, though I have cited that I enjoy you as a neighbor because I find you unthreatening, but please be aware that there are various ninja weapons hidden around the apartment a la Dwight Shrute. I think this rule needs no further explanation.

So, in summation, no long conversations, no guessing my name, no creepiness. These are the rules you must follow in order to continue being considered an acceptable neighbor to me. I think those are simple enough, Neighbor Across The Hall With The Pipe, but if you need clarification please do hesitate to contact me. If you find you have problems modifying your behavior in accordance with what I have set up here, limit all contact with me to a wave and a nod when we are forced to see one another and you will have successfully followed them without worry.

Thank you so much for your time,

Not Amy

The Best Thing

2010-08-12T20:15:00.000-04:00

There probably isn't much that's better than hearing 20 plus Belgian girls sing "fucking" in perfect harmony.

Except maybe when they say "Wha te-hell-em I doeeg here?"

I don't really care what you think about Facebook, but that Social Network movie is NOT ABOUT FACEBOOK. Not that a movie about Facebook wouldn't be effing awesome. With the right director, actors and, most importantly, writers, a film about the torment a group of teenagers do to themselves and one another via the internet could be fucking epic and speak to this generation like Insert-Title-Of-Film-About-Awkward-Teenagers-In-The-Late-90s did for my generation.

But I digress from my digression. Social Network looks sweet and that's coming from someone who dislikes Justin Timberlake. And I don't think it's just the trailer. It appears to be a film that's actually about the superficiality of some friendships (which is pretty appropriate for the makers of Facebook which is super superficial) and about legal stuff. And that looks good.

And back to the main point: This choir is magical. It reminds me of my first experience in a choir in elementary school. Not that we were any kind of good, but a group of voices together always sounds good. We wore gold cummerbunds and I have a picture of this that I will share with you someday.

And it all reminds me of that feeling that wells up inside of you when the music that you're totally immersed in is coming to a crescendo and it feels like the whole world is voluntarily on pause, holding its breath, waiting the perfect amount of time, that weird amount of time that you can't possibly count, it's not in beat with the rest of the music, it's completely subjective and based solely on intuition, the fermata, but you know when it's supposed to end, you feel it, and everybody feels it and everyone comes together at once during it.

I wish I could draw that.

Except that now that sounds like a really sexual thing and all I can think about is hentai now.

Great--I'm a creep.

What The Hell Kind of Satan Bug is This?

2010-08-08T13:34:00.001-04:00

It is here to kill me, I just know it.

EDIT: Turns out it's a house centipede which, although venomous, is not harmful to humans. Which I think is a contradiction, so I don't trust it.

Things I Find Creepy

2010-07-26T20:02:00.002-04:00

Getting ready to graduate college and dating someone who’s getting ready to graduate high school regardless of gender.

That’s it for now.

An assortment of things happened today.

2010-07-15T22:53:00.001-04:00

I took my car to the shop where they wanted to charge me $400+ (basically all the money to my name) to fix it, so I brought it home. It is still broken.

I did an extensive apartment hunt to find that we’re on the verge of screwed at finding an affordable one bedroom that allows pets by the time the lease is up here. We might be homeless for a week-ish.

I reviewed a paper that was all about how bad health care reform is going to be for America that was full of “facts” and used Anne BatShitCrazy Coulter as a source. To me, that's like citing Stephen Colbert. Kind of.

I was officially rejected by AGNI who I submitted a short story to back in May.

But today is still awesome! Know why? Because I got an email from Allie Brosh, funniest lady on the internets. Since she might see this, I thought I’d say that I’m funnier in older posts. My blog also used to exist a billion years ago on Wordpress at ashleycaggiano.wordpress.com, but after I had a slight mental breakdown I killed it and turned it into a useless site that is pretty much a picture of me with my diploma where I look like a blowup doll, so everything here only goes back two months.

I thought I’d share with you all the picture I originally sent her that she LOVED.

She said, “This is by far the most badass drawing anyone has EVER drawn for me.” I quoted that out of my email, people, ver-muthalickin-batim. I know a lot of people have sent her drawings, I’ve seen some, and they’re effing amazing. But mine is the “most badass.” Suck that, internets! I of course am taking this literally and going to make myself a certificate/award/trophy of some sort in the near future.

This is a very good day.

My Favorite Place on the Planet

2010-07-11T19:31:00.000-04:00

NOTE: This is another shared post with Mrs. Brown and Lady Margaret (though I don't know is Mags has done it yet, so that's just a link to her general site.)

Hands down, my favorite place on the planet has got to be the bathroom.

Let me make this a little clearer: my bathroom. I find public bathrooms to be helpful and I am grateful for even the grossest of them due to what I expect is overactive bladder, but my personal bathroom is my absolute favorite place.

First of all, it’s where the “get clean thing” are. If I could, I would take three showers a day—that is how hygienic I am, or, rather, a testament to how much sweat and oil I secrete. Starting a day without a shower turns me into, well, a slimy bitch. That’s the most poetic way I can put it. I will slowly sink further and further into myself as the day passes, replaying the morning in my head to figure out how I could have gotten a shower. Then I continue by berating myself for not following the now seemingly simplistic path that would have led to a cleaner day. I start to be able to feel every part of my body, every inch of skin and the layer of oil that has formed on top of it, every hair follicle on my legs and under my arms working tirelessly to poke out as much extra thick bristles to go along with the overnight unshavenness as possible, every bodily crevasse I own pooling with sweat. Yes, that crevasse too. Especially that one. Once I feel how terrible it all is I realize that there is absolutely nothing I could have done, including shooting kittens in their furry little faces with bear mace, that would merit me coping with such an existence, so I quickly blame whoever is closest to me. To punish them I repeat how badly I desire washing in various ways:

“I need a shower…Oh my golly do I need a shower…Dear, God, please, I need to bathe…OMG I feel disgrossting…Do you smell that? It’s me. What, you don’t? *pitt shoved directly into face* Yes, THAT!...Don’t touch me; I feel gross…Seriously, I’m so nasty…DON’T FUCKING LAY YOUR FILTHY GODDAMNED HANDS ON MY ALREADY REVOLTING SKIN, YOU’RE JUST ADDING MORE OIL TO IT! DO IT AGAIN AND I’LL BITE IT OFF AND BATHE IN YOUR BLOOD! FUCK!!!”

Aside from containing a shower, though, the bathroom is also the greatest sanctuary known to man for the simple fact that it is largely socially unacceptable to enter into whilst someone else is occupying it. This means you can be totally alone in there for as long as you want. And…you can poop.

Heaven knows I love a good poop.

But my body largely fails at allowing me to do this anywhere that is not the safety of my own bathroom. The question to “Does Ashley shit in the woods?” is “NO.” I have incredibly shy bowels. It doesn’t matter how badly anything is rolling around in my colon, it is just NOT coming out unless I’m safely at home or somewhere I’m incredibly comfortable or am absolutely sure that I will be alone. It’s actually kind of tragic.

So this is why my own bathroom is so dear to me. It is apparently the only place that my sphincter feels safe.

And it is also the place where I get my best ideas. Showering allows for some extra think time for a lot of people, but I’m pretty interested in actually cleaning my body which we’ve already established is naturally more soiled than most. But while pooping I write some of my greatest masterpieces, albeit in my head. I’m sure that this has something to do with pushing out crap in order to make room for new stuff. Yes, that must be it.

See? Poetic.

What Scares the Shit Out of Me

2010-07-10T21:06:00.002-04:00

First if all, this topic is being done, as I type, by my bloggette partners as well. You can read them here and here.

Aaaaaaaaaand GO:

Alligators.

Holy goddamn fuck!

These prehistoric bitches are re-goddamn-diculous. The fact that they exist at all is nightmarish. They are 800 pounds of evil. It doesn't matter that I live in Ohio and the only ones here at locked away at the zoo--I'm still convinced that they could organize, climb on one another's heads to escape their glass tanks, saunter into a web cafe, google "What Scares the Shit Out of Me: Alligators," find me, and death roll me. Please note here, though, that I used to live in Florida and you can randomly come across these reptilian creeps in the middle of the road there, so my fear was at least partially legitimate at one time.

I have this reoccurring dream. There are different versions of it, but I often start out in a Jeep with no kind of top and I'm always the front seat passenger with two other passengers and a driver. The four of us go speeding off into the swamp, always end up ramping something, and then flip headlong into a canal. The Jeep's overturned and I'm buckled in, so I can't go anywhere, submerged, though it doesn't really matter that I'm underwater because somehow I can still breathe. Everything is that greenish color with bits of algae and dirt floating in the water and then, in the distance, there's this shadow. I start to struggle with the seatbelt, but it doesn't matter. The gator's used its prehistoric telepathy to keep me locked in. I don't look away--I can't. The shadow takes on a familiar form--rounded snout, piercing eyes, open jaw full of teeth--and it's speeding at me.

And that's it.

Sometimes I have dreams that I'm near a swamp on really thin docks that are incredibly close to the water and there are alligators swimming around me, snapping at my ankles. It's all pretty horrible and now, because I'm writing this, I'm going to have another. I'll keep you updated.

But being afraid of crocodilians is totally justified and the reasons are manifest:

Alligators are over 200 millions years old. They're practically right out of the primordial ooze. They pretty much are the embodiment of demons, created before man and everything. And they are not good.
These assholes used to be bipedal. That's right--walking around on two legs with their massive flapping jaws.
They're only native to the US and China. Know what else is only native to the US and China? Me neither, but it's probably something evil.
They don't kill you, no. They drag you underwater and stuff you under a rock until you tenderize. That is intent, my friends, and that is terrifying.
There are also crocodiles which are kinda dragon-like but God knows they're not full of magic and rides through the air:

And caimans:

I once dated a guy whose family thought it would be fun to take me to an alligator farm. Needless to say, he is not The Boyfriend.

So, in summation, alligators make me want to poop myself. The end.

I Hate People On Bikes* **

2010-07-04T16:21:00.002-04:00

*Don’t take this seriously, Browns. I love you guys.

**Do take this seriously, Everyone Else.

Bicycling is great in theory: it’s better for the environment, healthy, cheaper than driving, makes parking easier and umm…that’s about it. Barring the whole hippie planet saving thing, which mostly manifests itself in a superiority complex to people who live too far from their jobs to consider using manpower to get there, bicycling suddenly seems incredibly selfish, which is probably why most bicyclists are such assholes and I hate them.

Actually, I’m pretty sure why I “hate” bicyclists is because I have this overwhelming fear that someday I’m going to hit one and have their death on my hands for the rest of my life, and it will actually be all their fault, but I’ll never be able to fully accept that and will just blame myself forever, not to mention the fact that the court will also blame me and I’ll go to jail for manslaughter even though it’s the stupid biker’s fault they’re dead because they don’t apparently believe in stoplights.

Whether they are new or not, I just noticed what I’m going to refer to as the “new” and unnecessarily over-reflective “SHARE THE ROAD” signs in the gentrified parts of the city. Below each one is a separate sign (not the same sign, mind you, but a whole new sign in a different shape and everything) that has a bicycle on it. They’re both bright orange, road cone orange, New Lexington women’s graduation cap and gown orange, and they force you to look at them because, at first glance, they look like road construction signs. They’re kind of evil in that way. But, I guess they can’t be yellow like the pedestrian signs because bicycles aren’t to be treated as pedestrians. Also they’re not supposed to act like pedestrians. However, I’ve learned that they’re also not supposed to act like vehicles, despite Title 45, the traffic laws in Ohio’s Revised Code.

They follow their own rules that aren’t marked down anywhere, but telepathically communicated between bicyclists. I’ve deciphered some of them though and thought I’d set them down here for you. Be warned, though, I can’t promise these will hold fast for any amount of time. I’m sure as soon as one of them gets wind of them being communicated amongst even the most cautious and caring of drivers, they’ll change everything up right away.

They are as follows:

A red light does not mean stop. A red light means slow down slightly as you pass all the cars in front of you on their right, sneak up to the front of the red light, and then speed through between cars who clearly have the right of way and can see only the stopped cars because you’re hiding behind them so they’re driving at a normal speed through the green light they’ve mistaken for telling them they have the right of way. You’ll surprise cross traffic, but that’s okay—they need to learn to share the road!

The turning lane in the center of the road is not actually for turning—that’s just a joke some silly car driver made up! The turning lane in the center of the road is actually for you to personally ride in in order to pass everyone else while they’re stopped for impractical reasons like waiting for others to turn right or stop signs or even red lights. You should especially put to use the “turning” (hehe) lane when a car is in said lane, patiently waiting for traffic to pass. Remember though, they cannot swerve out of your way seeing as they’re much wider than you, so it will be helpful if you get pissed off when a car is stopped there with its blinker on and you can’t continue down the center in either direction. It will be even more helpful to creep up behind them on their left when they’re about to turn in the only break in traffic, putting yourself between them and the suddenly open road. They won’t be expecting anything coming from their left, but, by golly, they need to learn to share the road!

The left lane is as good as the right lane when there are four of them. By the way, you should get into the left lane as soon as possible, miles before your left turn comes up. Also, be sure not to make the proper signals or really any kind of signal to alert the people behind you that you’re about to slice in front of them at half their speed. And, while we’re on the subject of the right lane, be sure to stay as far from the curb as possible so that cars can’t pass you when it’s safe to do it. It’s pretty awesome of you to drive down the middle of any road, really. The road—they’ve gotta learn to share it!

Drive on the left side or the right side of the road. When you are on the right, the cars behind you can slow down or even stop without having to veer off anywhere. This is expected and makes for lax drivers, and we wouldn’t want that! When you ride on the left, toward traffic, cars can slow down, they can stop, but it will do little good when you’re a yard away from the sidewalk with no intention of shifting your direction. DO NOT SHIFT DIRECTION. You should know that cars instinctually don’t want to hit you because they know how fragile you are seeing as you’re not wearing a helmet, so they will veer off into oncoming traffic that doesn’t know you’re there so hasn’t considered the possibility that the car opposite them may suddenly be coming at them in a moment nor does the oncoming traffic really have room to do its own veering due to lack of road, parked cars or, yes, another of your biking brethren. This is a glorious moment to really teach drivers how to share the road.

Above all, remember: YOU ARE SUPERIOR TO CARS AND PEDESTRIANS. Since you are neither, you can follow whichever rules you like or none at all!

I'll Follow You Until You Love Me

2010-07-02T22:55:00.000-04:00

I hear The Boyfriend go, "Paparazzi!"

I think, "The Boyfriend doesn't even know who Lady GaGa is."

I find the following on my camera a day later:

I'm A Creep

2010-06-23T22:52:00.000-04:00

Also, just so you all know, I'm watching you...

This is a single user from my stat counter. And I know exactly who it is. Bwahahahahaha!