The World O' Crap Archive

Welcome to the Collected World O' Crap, a comprehensive library of posts from the original Salon Blog, and our successor site, world-o-crap.com (2006 to 2010).

Current posts can be found here.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Winner Of The Salinger Award For Productivity In Blogging

I apologize for the slow pace of blogging around here, but I’ve recently hit a personal Trifecta: a rash of story meetings (impervious to any ointment!), the Return of the Herniated Disc, which as sequels go is just slightly suckier than Star Wars Episode I:  The Phantom Menace if you edited out everything but Jar Jar, and a bout of cluster headaches, which feels, as I’ve remarked elsewhere, as if Keebler Elves made cookies in your head, then got claustrophobic and tried to drill their way out through your eye.  But beyond that, I’ve come down with a touch of the Blogger Malaise that’s afflicting so many of us who ply the wingnut spoofery trade.  After all, the GOP is out of power, and in the first flush of a new administration, it seemed mean-spirited and a trifle obsessive-compulsive to continue mocking the Old Believers and their stubborn, pathetic attachment to the superannuated liturgy of Bush and Cheney.  On the other hand, you don’t ignore the termites devouring your house just because their name isn’t on the deed and they don’t get to choose the drapes.
At the moment, though, there doesn’t seem to be much going on, although the RNC did make history today by electing Michael Steele as chairman…
RNCChairSteele.jpg
Steele is only the second bassist — after Mike Huckabee — to achieve a position of national prominence in the Republican Party, and the first to have a song covered by Shonen Knife.
Okay, that didn’t work out too well.  How ’bout some cat pictures?
drFuManchuToy.jpg
Here’s Riley’s photo from her Craigslist ad:  Evil feline supervillain looking for small human to stroke while ordering the death of foriegn agents and clumsy subordinates.  Longhair preferred.
Meanwhile, Moondoggie is still flabbergasted by recent political events:
MoonCantBelieve.jpg
“‘President Obama.’  I just can’t believe it…”

Posted by scott on Saturday, January 31st, 2009 at 1:42 am

19 Responses to “Winner Of The Salinger Award For Productivity In Blogging”

I think I know what’s causing your cluster headaches: you seem to be under the impression that cats can have human thoughts.
Local band finally gets discovered, whisked to LA, wined, dined, and led to a penthouse office to ink a big contract.
The singer thinks, “We’re signed! Now I can get all the drugs I want!”
The guitarist thinks, “We’re signed! Now I can get all the equipment I want!”
The drummer thinks, “We’re signed! Now I can get all the chicks I want!”
The bass player thinks, “G…A…D…G…”
Get well soon, man.
Herniated disc? I had one a couple years ago. Unbelievable pain followed me throughout my 3 weeks in Germany for the World Cup. I didn’t want to have surgery but my doctor was a pushy prick and I relented. I entered the hospital at 5am, and walked out at 11:30am, pain-free. It’s a little more complicated than that but totally worth it if you have insurance. Big if, I know, but all the fruity hippy treatments in the world and hanging upside down won’t cure it. Go under the knife if you can. You won’t regret it. Unless you die, or get one of those hospital staph infections. But that’s relatively rare, right?
O God, cluster headaches.
I started getting them in my early twenties, and they’d show up irregularly like a bad penny, usually just in time to ruin a date or otherwise fuck my schedule over.
Oddly, I last had one back in 2002, and since I made no changes whatsoever in diet, lifestyle, or anything else, still haven’t a clue why they’ve been dormant these past seven years.
Tell you this much, I’m pretty goddam glad of it, and recall that I once characterized the cluster headache as “like the ‘brain freeze’ caused by eating ice cream too fast, only instead of lasting only a few seconds, it goes on, and on, and on, until you’re screamingmake it stop and banging your head against the wall in an attempt to render yourself unconscious.”
Keebler Elves armed with power tools sums it up nicely too. :-)
You have my deepest sympathy, Scott, and I hope we live long enough to see some bright boy figger out what causes ‘em.
Cats don’t have “human” thoughts, Me, they are operating on a whole other, higher plane, which is why they rule over us. They’re cookin’ on a whoooooole other planet. I think that the living-in-the-middle-of-La-La-Land is what’s causing Scott’s headaches, personally.
Though that herniated disk thing might be contributing… You never know which nerve branches are being crushed, or what part of your spinal cord is being yanked in the wrong direction by the out-oozing of the disk & contents. Hey, maybe we can have our disk surgeries concurrently, and do a live-blogging recovery event! I can just see it now, both of us stoned off of our asses, me in a friggin’ halo, you utterly prone, trying to hunt-and-peck what it’s like on the other side of the pain wall. Sounds like OODLES of fun, doesn’t it? But y’know, honestly? YOU FIRST. Lemme know how it goes, and then I’ll deal with my neck shit. If I don’t hunt that ambulance-chasing scum Morris Bart down and have him taxidermied to hang on my wall FIRST.
What was creepy about the Michael Steele link (has ANYBODYever actually been born with that name?!?!?!? Even Alison Steele never pretended that HER radio name was “authentic”!) is that HIS big CNN picture pose is eerily reminiscent of the arm-waving picture of Obama for CNN’s “first 100 days” or whatever the count is, ad for their coverage of Obama’s beginning presidency. Except that “Steele” looks like the world’s most awkward JCPenney model, and Obama looks natural and friendly. Biz-to-the-fucking-zarre.
All Hail The Feline Overlord Riley, and commiserating baggies of Meowie Wowie and/or Cosmic Catnip for Moondoggie. That child looks utterly flustered.
Unclarified re: CNN picture/CNN Obama ad: They were RIGHT NEXT TO ONE ANOTHER, when I hit the link, hence teh weirdness. Like Michael was aspiring to the charisma and missed it by a MILE.
It’s true the Herniated Thang is a prolific headache factory, if only because the muscle spasms tend to migrate, but the clusters predate the back problem. Like Chris, I was first visited by the Intracranial Jackhammer Elves in my early twenties, and had ‘em for quite awhile before they invented a drug that had any effect on them at all. It was sort of like having major surgery once a day for three to five weeks several times a year, before they invented ether.
I used to get something akin to cluster headaches with severe debilitating pain, but a fun drug (Fiorinal w/Codeine) killed ‘em dead. They weren’t cluster headaches after all (neurologist told me so), and the only other drug that did any good (ergotamine) was taken off the market. After the headaches came on in the mid ’80s, they finally abated about seven years ago and haven’t returned.
and the only other drug that did any good (ergotamine) was taken off the market.
Still legally available as a prescription drug, as far as I know (in NZ).
Until the recent few months of neurological/facial freak-outs, I hadn’t had anything approaching a migraine or of similar severity in YEARS. Amateur version of a “neurology” clinic @ Charity gave me some of those lovely anti-psychotic/drool-a-rific Depakotes, and I did not enjoy the experience, could only stand the chemical lobotomy for a couple weeks, but then migraines were, indeed, gone, even after the drool-o-matic Depakote was out of my system.
But since this latest spate of neuro issues, the “enraged wolverine, trying to dig his way out of my skull through my right eyeball”sensation has returned. Don’t know if that counts as a “cluster” headache, never really dealt with those, as far as I know. The really heartening thing is that my new neurologist is, like, TWELVE, and smiles at me like I’m senile/mentally retarded/the world’s worst hypochondriac when I try to explain to her how my face is seizing-up mid-word and my brain goes blank, which is utterly infuriating in the middle of a conversation, not to mention humiliating as fuck. She assumes that I’m making it up, and as I have no VISUAL witnesses, only over-the-phone witnesses to these episodes, she wants EVIDENCE. Oh, no, that’s not condescending/infuriating/discriminatory IN THE FUCKING LEAST.
And, after having explained to her that I am poor, I do not own a video camera OR a cell phone with a video camera, Perky McNeuro says, “Well, okay then! Just try to get that on video for me before your next appointment!”
Would it be considered “premeditated” if I took the four-way tire-tool into the exam room with me? She was in such a rush to get on to her “important” customers, I didn’t even get to tell her dainty little spinner ass about the Lyrica lobotomy OR the headaches. Did some lovely “sleep-deprived” tests on Thursday, MRI & EEG, and if I never see another fucking strobe light, it’ll be too soon. Tools of sadistic Mengele-wannabes, the damned things. I’m surprised that I didn’t start bleeding outta the eyes. And yeah, I gotta wait until Perky McNeuro gets around to reading & interpreting the test results before I know if I can do the neck surgery without stroking-out.
If I was a horse, they’d have shot me back in ’95.
So Scott, if it’s not the disk/disc issues causing yer brain to try and escape from your eye sockets, do you know what it is, or are you waiting for a diagnosis, or are you just pretending that it’ll go away if you never go to a doctor? And yes, thus far, that’s been your “treatment plan” with the back problems, so I’m familiar with your methodology.
If we’ve learned NOTHING from Annti’s many spinal/medical misadventures, it’s that you should never LET SHIT STAY THAT WAY, ‘CAUSE IT ONLY FUCKING GETS WORSE.Sheesh. You’re giving me even more grey/white hair, dammit.
My most sincere sympathies to all of you. Feel better, Scott. And while it’s tempting, I gather self-trepanation is rarely useful. Though Depakote can accomplish the same thing, actually.
Annti, rest assured, I’ve consulted doctors repeatedly over the years, but no one knows exactly (or even approximately) what causes cluster headaches, only that they provide “the most intense pain known to medical science.” So thanks for the validation, Medical Science! On the other hand, since I’ve discovered Zomig, they’ve become manageable. On the third, mutant hand growing out of my back, Zomig is criminally expensive (1 to 2 doses per day for 3 to 5 weeks is required, and the stuff retails at $450 for a blister pack of nine pills) so those periods I’ve been without insurance are when I’m most likely to adopt the original name for the condition: “suicide headaches.”
As for the disk, I’ve been to see my internist, who sent me to a pain specialist, and at the moment they’re having an above-my-pay-grade dispute about how to proceed. But I’m not just sitting and hoping things get better; I am being proactive about my health.
I come here and complain about it.
Zomig goes generic in 2013, by which time it probably won’t work for you anymore if yours are anything like mine. But cheer up, my last neurologist says they aren’t. Because apparently women don’t get clusters, just something that acts the same but probably for different reasons.
I have *got* to get a new neurologist.
On the possibly plus side, you can now get generic Imitrex, if that works for you.
Ah, good to know. Mary uses Imitrex for her migraines.
Thanks, D.
Cough- nothing I like better than a nice headache cure discussion, unless its insomnia chat, or PMS solutions. Oddly, one drug I took for over a year completely stopped the headaches: Effor, an antidepressant. Sadly, for me, it did not anti-depress and I went “off” it. 2 months later headaches are back with a vengeance. I’m pondering asking Doctor to subscribe a low dose. See if it helps. After a headache-free year+, I’m willing to try.
DANG IT! Effexor. Not Effor.
My mistake, Scott. I couldn’t remember you saying that you’d gone for specialized medical treatment before, so forgive me.
But if I could offer a bit more unwanted advice, avoid “pain specialists” and similar drug dealers at all costs. They don’t treat the CAUSE of the pain, they just want you to have to come in every fucking month and pay them to write the scripts. And if they try to talk you into those obscenely-useless cortisone or other steroid injections at the disc sites or facet joints, RUN, don’t walk, to an orthopedist or neurologist. Too much pain for absolutely no gain, in my experience, and when at Charity, I was the Human Voodoo Doll, with dozens of those four-foot-long fucking needles sticking out at all angles.
Kathy: I’m glad that Effexor helped your headaches, but if you’re planning on reproducing in the future, drop that shit. My great-nephew was conceived two months after his mother stopped taking Effexor (as directed by the Big-Pharma manufacturers), and he was born with a hole in his heart, a clusterfucked valve, and at a little over 2 years old, has barely survived one catheterization and four open-heart surgeries. You can’t even DRIVE BY a hospital without that poor child freaking out. And Our Lady Of The Lake Hospital/Medical Center of Baton Rouge, LA, are the motherfuckers who killed him on the table during a “routine” catheterization. I’m just damned thankful for helicopters and Children’s Hospital of New Orleans, where the REAL pediatric surgeons work.
Hi, Scott.
I’m sorry about your disc(k?), but have a (no, no, I didn’t plan it!) bone to pick with you.
It’s RILEY who should be in shock. After all, PBHO (PBUH) is JUST LIKE HER.
The occasional post will have to suffice, I guess. I sincerely hope you don’t plan to give up blogging altogether. I’m not sure I can survive that.
Hey, Scott?
How’s that PJs Media thing working out for you?
*grin*

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