Cyclothymia

Thankful To Be One Of The Lucky Ones

I was smacked in the face with two unpleasant medical realities a couple of days ago. First I realized that I have been taking a half dose of one of my medications for at least a week, which hopefully explains why I'm not feeling great. Then I realized that I'd be spending $160 today for refills on 3 of my prescriptions. I have 8 prescriptions. And people? I HAVE INSURANCE.

My expenditure on medical stuff for the past few months has been astronomical between all the appointment co-pays and prescriptions. I asked the pharmacist what the one month cost of one of my prescriptions was without insurance. $368 for a one month supply of a generic medication. Anyone know which of the presidential candidates has the best plan for fixing this out of whack medical system?

ps. In keeping with the holiday spirit, I wanted to share this blog.

Give your soul a little freedom.

Do you remember in middle school and high school how at the end of the year everyone would vote people as "most likely to succeed" or "best smile" or "person I'd most like to see being raped by a llama"? Well, like everything else in today's world, there's now an electronic version. It's an application on facebook called "compare people". I like how they just put it flat out there - the only thing more honest would have been "popularity contest". Anyway, as with so many things, I mock it, and then join in.

One of the things that I was voted was....best dancer. I was really surprised by this because I am NOT a good dancer. I had mandatory dance lessons as part of my gymnastics training when I was younger, and the instructor basically wrote me a doctor's note saying "Please excuse her from the class. She's hopeless and I think she might have palsy."

After a little thought, however, I know why people think I am a good dancer. Basically I enjoy it so much I create an optical illusion. I have gone clubbing a couple of times recently for the first time in, oh, say 4 years, and oh. my. god. I had such a great time. I'd forgotten how dancing is one of the only ways I can completely lose myself in my body. I feel sexy. I love the fact that I can have that taut sensation of The Possible with someone, without any pressure to take it further. I feel happy, and I am not thinking about a damn thing other than the music. In some ways it's similar to spinning - it's dark, the music is loud, and you're doing something rhythmic. I have no idea what else might fall under that category.

After clubbing the first time I was barely able to walk the next day. My quads were done. It gave me an idea. I put on some music at home one day when I didn't feel like going out for a run or to the gym, and put on my hr monitor, and went to town. It was very easy to keep my heart rate above 140, and adding in random squats and other lb exercises gave little pulses to 150. Not quite running, but decent, and so much more fun. Seriously validates my decision not to get a roommate - gettin' down in your undies is one of the great pleasures of life. My only beef is that I can't blast the music as much as I'd like.

I thought I'd share some of the music I go for in one of these sessions. It's mostly electronic, because that's mostly what I do high energy dancing to, and I particularly lose myself in listening to it. For me it's very zen.

Shakey Shaker - Hallucinogen
Somebody to Love - Boogie Pimps
Tijuana Groove Is In the Air - Digweed
Adir Adrimi - Balkan Beat Box
Corporate World - Dust Brothers
Buttons - PCD
Think Locally Fuck Globally - Gogol Bordello
Touch It Technologic - Daft Punk
Scorpion Frog - Infected Mushroom
At The End (Johnny Vicious Remix) - IIO
And of course, the perfect:
Castles in the Sky

Castles In the Sky is a surefire magic carpet ride to happy times for me. Go wiggle your hips people!

White Trash Holiday Fun

No, I'm not talking about making beer can tree decorations, or blowing up the giant inflatable santa lawn ornament, or even festively dyeing your Wal-Mart cigarettes red and green. I'm talking about tasty holiday treats. I brought one of my childhood favorites to the football party this weekend, and it was a huge hit, so I thought I might share it here. You can make this while completely shitfaced on molson, it's that easy.

Ingredients:
Peanut Butter (none of that fancy ass natural shiate)
Ritz Crackers
Chocolate Chips (not that semi-sweet baking stuff)

Step 1: Make lots of peanut butter sammiches with the crackers and peanut butter.
Step 2: Melt the chocolate and dip each sammich in it to coat thoroughly.
Step 3: Stick sammiches (on wax paper or tinfoil) in the freezer for at least 10 minutes.

There's nothing precisely festive about them, except that they're about 1000 calories each.

While I'm at it I'll share the other dessert that I made for football, which was referred to as "sugar-dipped crack", because it also strikes me as kind of white trash, but I should note that the person I got the recipe from is perfectly lovely and not white trash at all.

Ingredients:
Pillsbury crescent rolls in a can
Marshmallows
Sugar and Cinnamon
Butter

Step 1: Melt butter.
Step 2: Mix sugar and cinnamon to taste.
Step 3: Roll marshmallow in butter and then sugar and cinnamon mixture.
Step 4: Take one crescent roll and roll it around marshmallow, making sure to pinch dough closed on all sides.
Step 5: Dip the top of the crescent roll in butter and then sugar and cinnamon mixture.
Step 5: Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes.

These taste like apple pie, which is a little disturbing, but negates the need for keeping those expensive pieces of fresh fruit around. Also, obviously this recipe is a lot more complicated and involves the oven, so limit the liquor and stick to pot.

I'll Take Secret Option B, Thanks

Last week I had another allergic reaction. Totally my fault, I was in a hurry and didn't read a menu thoroughly enough, so I ended up getting a salad with pistachios. I didn't actually eat a pistachio, but I had a few bites of the salad, and that was enough. Anyway, at my follow up appointment today I got berated again for not using my epi-pen. I reiterated that I knew it was stupid, but that a 6 inch pointy thing jabbing into my thigh is SCARY. Maybe not as scary as dying, but I'm an optimist, I don't think I'm going to die.

So, after evaluating my logic and noting the fact that I've now chickened out of using it twice, he mentioned that they used to give epinephrine inhalers before the epi-pens came out. Inhalers. Instead of a huge ass pointy device. The inhalers are basically a secret now - the nurse had never heard of them. Why the near total switch? Apparently inhalers are too complicated. Seriously. Enough people couldn't figure out how to use them that the medical community switched to the needle form. Exactly how retarded IS our country? Why aren't more people getting stuck in corners and eating cheerios off the floor? Why aren't our streets covered in drool and feces?

Luckily for my thighs, it turns out the doctor figured I was on the competent side of that divider ("she seems to be able to dress herself, sooo..."), and I now have an epinephrine inhaler. I almost want to go eat a pistachio just to celebrate not having to poke myself.

ps. My allergist is a very fatherly older guy and whenever I would say, "But I couldn't bring myself to do it!", he would say "So, have someone else poke you. Someone else can poke you and you won't even feel it." Well, frankly sir, if I can't feel it that must be some pretty shitty poking right there, and I'm saving all the shitty poking for marriage.

And So Begins The Downward Slide

First off, I'd like to thank all of my friends for making me feel ever so loved yesterday. Not only did I get long-distance mockery about my sad decline from my friends who were not with me, but my friends who were there went to the effort to get props to help bring the message home - YOU'RE OLD. I, however, remain unfazed since a) it was a wonderfully rum and sun-soaked day, and any time you wake up from a nap with hammock prints on your face you can assume it's a pretty good life and b) I'm still younger than you fuckers and always will be, so suck on that!

In between the beer-pong and bonfire (no Dan, do not reach into the fire to retrieve the errant ball), someone showed me a tv show called Chelsea Lately. It's basically 30 minutes of pure snark, so you can imagine how enamored I am with it. It's like she's me, only 4 inches taller (no stubby there!) and gorgeous. Fucking tv people. Anyway, I think now that I'm publicly admitting to not only watching, but enjoying, an E channel show, Flexy and I can officially end the debate about whether I'm smart or not, much less a member of "the intellectual elite" as someone at Google recently assumed. Putting aside the sheer off-putting arrogance of that phrase and sticking to the facts, I submit to you that Flexy doesn't even have a tv, and I'm using mine to watch a show that asks: if Britney has been legally barred from driving her kids, and now she may currently be pregnant again, is she then barred from driving herself? Deep legal questions here people.

Oh, and also along the lines of whether I'm smarter than a 9th grade dropout, someone gave me a book of lateral puzzles (shaped like a toilet, NOT intellectual!), and although I struggled with some of the "warm-up" puzzles, the section with "trick" puzzles I breezed through. Trust issues you think?