X is for xylophone

I have spent my weekend in the midwest listening to physician after physician, lecturing ad nauseum on subjects I've already been marinated in for some time now. While statistics and data sets were tossed around by the speakers, their voices inevitably turned into the Charlie Brown teacher voice. My mind began to wander and I started to think of something my mom and I discussed recently.



I started first grade in a new city after my family moved. I had been attending a private religious school for 2 years and my parents decided that I needed to experience public school to properly integrate socially. Because of my age, the school made my mom enter me into the first grade; I had already completed this at my other school but they thought I was too young to mingle with the elder second graders.



My memory of my first day in public school brings up very vivid and vulnerable feelings. I remember hearing the teachers discuss the alphabet and they wanted to review it for all of us. Apparently at this school, they spent all of kindergarten learning the order of (and how to draw) all 26 fabulous letters. The teachers passed out laminated pictures, with each picture representing a different letter. We were to all get in line for recess according to our letter. I was the letter 'x' and I held a picture of a xylophone.



I remember being so unbelievably frustrated. The alphabet? Are you serious? The last thing I remember reading before this new school was "The Tell-Tale Heart." Granted it was not Poe's original version, but it was quite a bit more sophisticated than the alphabet review I was currently enduring. I thought of all the school work that lied between A-B-C and the killer heartbeat that drove the nervous narrator mad.



And I started to cry.



A grandmotherly teacher came to my side. "It's ok. This is just a review of the alphabet. If you don't know where your letter goes, someone will help you." That made me cry harder. She held my hand and helped me into line behind the kid with the watch picture. I would have called it a pocket watch, but we apparently wouldn't be getting to grammer for fifteen years.



I'm not sure why I couldn't verbalize any of this. Undeveloped verbal skills? The inability to translate emotion into words? I don't know. But I remember sobbing because of the overwhelming frustration and having no idea how to tell them why I was crying.



I came home and told my mom I hated school; she probably thought it was the new town, new school adjustment period and it would work itself out. When I got a C in almost every subject on my first six weeks report card, my mom took notice. My homeroom teacher had a conference with my mom and told her that I was far behind everyone else; I didn't know the answers when I was called upon, I couldn't do the assignments, etc. Mrs. B pulled out my papers and showed my mom the evidence. My mom told her that she knew I could do this work, that I was many levels past what she was shown. Mrs. B said I couldn't spell simple words, count money correctly, or read very well. Count money? I was doing pre-algebra the previous year. Mrs. B was skeptical but kept trying to get me to participate. I don't really remember the specifics of not doing the work, not participating. But I remember being depressed about how long it was going to take to get to something interesting, something challenging.



Like I said before, my mom and I only recently talked about this for the first time. All she remembers is that I did badly in school when we first moved. She told me about the parent-teacher conference and how she later brought in examples of my work from my previous school. She said that after that, things were fine. She had no idea what Mrs. B did to change things, but all my grades returned to A's and I no longer hated my new school. (Thank you, Mrs. B. Wherever you are.)



All I knew was that my mom came in to talk to Mrs. B and after that I had my own work separate from everyone else. New topics - subjects I had not learned before, interesting things. Eventually, a few other kids were pulled in with me and we had a small separate group for every subject. I stayed in classes with most of these kids all the way through high school.



But high school is a whole different story...




My Beef This Week



Given this blog theme, my current beef is how we are leaving so many children behind with our "no child left behind" legislation. W passed that shit in Texas and made a poorly functioning educational system completely worthless. Then W steals the presidency and manages to leave the rest of the country's children behind as well. All my friends and family members that are teachers are trying to get out any way they can. We need these teachers. We need Mrs. B.

I spoke with a math teacher friend of mine last night and she has only been back in school for a few weeks but is already ready to walk. She kept asking, "why must they make an already difficult job even more impossible to do?" Granted, that seems to happen everywhere; definitely in my job too, but I get paid over 5 times her salary and get better tax breaks for my trouble. And my job is not nearly as important as educating our children. My aunt recently quit teaching elementary school because of "all teachers left behind" (as she likes to call it). One of my favorite teachers has started teaching at a community college because he couldn't deal with the new regs. Several of my mother's teacher-friends are retiring early because of the same thing.



We are losing good teachers and we are 'educating' students to take standardized tests. Critical thinking skills? Who needs them...We are manipulating statistics to show how great we are doing not leaving the kids behind. We are doing a huge disservice to our youth. Without outside influences, this 'system' merely prepares them for their brave new world sans Aldous Huxley's manual.

'Carma'

Last week my neighbor backed into my car when he was coming out of his driveway. Accidents suck, but to me they are no big deal as long as nobody was hurt. He was visibly shaken and was reluctant to tell me about my car. He roused me out of bed, babbled at me incoherently, and then walked over to my car and pointed.

"It's not that bad," I said.

"You're very understanding."

"It's just a car." Personally, I was more upset about be woken early than I was about the car. "Just give me your insurance info and I'll take car of it."

"You are really taking this well."

"If I got upset every time something happened to one of my cars, I'd be a mental case." That's why I go for the practical, energy-efficient cars; they get me from point A to point B. They don't need to be flashy.

I dropped the car off for the estimate on Monday, they had it fixed by Wednesday before noon. I could hardly believe it. I was out of town until the next week and I never figured in a million years that they would have it fixed before I returned.

My husband ran my car under a truck a few months back. It was only the fender, one headlight, and part of the hood that was damaged. It took the body shop 8 weeks to fix it. Then some guy hit my husband in his car (and tried to flee the scene at 2 mph!) and only the passenger door was damaged. It took them 10 weeks to fix his car. After these two rather lengthy turnarounds, I decided to go somewhere else. And the new place was great: quality work in a very short time.

Apparently the old body shop didn't realize how much business they would lose from me. I am definitely a repeat customer.

My issues with cars are a source of great amusement for my friends and family. I've had a car float away, I have had one demolished by drag racing drunk drivers, I've had one that the front driver side wheel just broke off while I was driving. I hit a deer in my first automobile, totaled some farmer's brand new truck on my 21st birthday, and ran up under a Bronco in college. My current car has been smashed by my husband, hit by my neighbor, and severely damaged in hail storm last year. Only two of the 12 incidents with my cars have been my fault.

One of my new age friends thinks I did something really bad to machinery in a past life.

The all time best car accident story was when I lost my car on the very day I finished my PhD. I had passed my dissertation defense and had gone up to the school to do some required paperwork. I still needed to make corrections on my dissertation before it was printed but decided to put it off until the next day. Later, I would terribly grateful for my procrastination.

I had not had a chance to eat lunch, so I decided to get some food and sit near the beach to eat it. It was November so it was slightly cold, but after debating the pros and cons of eating in my car, I decided to get out. I sat down on some stairs that led down to the beach below and began eating my lunch. About 5 minutes later I hear a loud crash, and a car comes flying overhead and lands on the beach below.

My first thought, "holy shit!" I stood up and realized there was glass in my mouth and my hair. Some guy was screaming at me, but I couldn't understand him. That was when I noticed my car was gone. I looked at the car on the beach below and that was when I saw Scooby Doo hanging from the rearview mirror. I had a Scooby Doo air freshener just like that in my car. Holy shit, that is my FUCKING car!

I ran down the stairs and looked in the car. It was demolished. The trunk of the car was flush with the front seats. There was no backseat any more. The hood and front lights had fallen off as well.

There was someone still yelling at the top of the stairs, so I ran back up. It was a jogger and he was pointing to a Suburban that was still driving up ahead on the sidewalk. Some guy in a truck pulled over and said get in. So I did. We drove to catch up to the Suburban, but by then the radiator had blown and he wasn't going anywhere.

This old man got out and said, "I don't know what happened." Yeah, right buddy. He was about 80 and had severe rheumatoid arthritis. It was quickly apparent that he should not have been driving for the last few years (the insurance company confirmed this when they told me he had 3 other at-fault accidents that year).

I went back over to where my car was and a bunch of people had gathered at this point. Some woman was babbling about how she saw the car was there and then it wasn't and she couldn't figure out what happened. The guy that kept screaming at me was there too. He looked more freaked out than I was. He told me that he was jogging and had to physically dodge my car so it didn't carry him to the beach below. There was no doubt that both he and I had nearly escaped death. Had he been a few feet ahead of where he was, he never would have seen my car coming. Had I been in the car, or sitting 10 feet to the left, there is no doubt I would have been dead.

Holy shit.

There was a crowd of people forming to the side that kept getting bigger and bigger. People would point at me, some would come over and touch my arm and tell me how lucky I was. They seemed astonished that I was OK. I was a little weirded out, but not to the degree that they seemed to be. The words "miracle" and "amazing" were thrown around, and I became a little perplexed. When the cop finally came over to me, that's when I understood what was going on.

The first thing he says to me is, "Last story I heard, car flips three times in the air, you walk away unscathed." I said, "No. The car flipped once and I wasn't in it."

Cop: "Everyone says they saw you walk up from the beach after it happened."

Me: "I did, but only because I ran down the stairs after I realized it was my car. See that circle on the stairs where there is no glass? That is where my ass was when the car flew over my head."

Cop: "That makes more sense."

So my boyfriend came down and met me and we scavenged the beach for my stuff. I found tiny shreds of Coke cans scattered for 100 yards, confetti from the 12 pack in my trunk. My cell phone was smashed, my purse was a knotted heap, and there were CD pieces everywhere. The only thing left of the rear of my car was about one-third of the license plate. Thank God my computer was not in my car!!!!!!!!!!!!

The only thing I found intact was my Dido CD. It has now become my lucky Dido CD because of the dozens of CDs in my car, that was the only one playable. Not only playable, but perfect. I found it laying playing side up, balanced on a rock about 50 feet away.

They got a crane and two tow trucks to get my car off the beach. They had to run a chain through the windows so the crane could move it. The remnants of the muffler fell off when they picked it up. The cop took pictures because he thought the whole thing was so funny. He wanted to run home and get his fishing pole so he could send out a "look-what-I-caught" email. I guess he settled for Photoshopping it in later.

That was the talk of the town for a bit, until a hospital physician ran himself onto the beach while he had hooked himself up to an IV bag of pain meds. Needless to say, he lost his car and both of his licenses (driving and medical).

So you can see why my friends and family think the car thing is so funny. I usually have a new story to tell them every family reunion. Now that I travel so much for my job, I have rental car disasters to include. I was nearly decapitated by a large piece of sheet metal when I was driving a convertible in Arkansas; but that is a story for another time.

My Beef This Week

I actually have no beef this week. I have a non-beef, if you will. I am grateful for insurance. I am an actuary's worst nightmare. A mathematical anomaly. No one can explain why these things keep happening to me. And although I have been quite unlucky with cars, I have been very fortunate in most of the circumstances. I have only been hurt once out of all the incidents. And how many people have a police officer witness their accident and have the cop chase down the drunk assholes that fled the scene? Talk about unlucky luck.


So my dear friends, watch out on those roads. Drive safely, and make sure your premiums are up to date!

Where the hell have I been?

Let's see. It's been about a year since I posted my last blog. There are a multitude of excuses, but basically life got in the way. It has a tendency to do that.

What's been going on? In the past year I have: gotten kicked out of my rental house due to the deadbeat landlord (see below), bought a house, moved, had 3 family members die, had a computer that died, got fired, got pissed, got hired, spent more time on the road than in my new house, found the fastest route to the airport (limited only by the laws of physics), and learned Portuguese.

Okay, I didn't learn Portuguese. But I learned how to say "fuck you" and "your mother's pussy has teeth" in Arabic.

So aside from the deaths in my family, which are unfortunately a part of life, the biggest thing that happened to me this past year was getting fired.

I have never been fired before. I'm an overachiever by nature so I'm not used to failure professionally. I'm not sorry it happened, because if nothing else it taught me a great lesson in politics and I proved to myself that my integrity meant more to me than my paycheck.

The somewhat short version: I was asked several times to perform my job function in an illegal manner. I was told on numerous occasions that I was performing poorly, and the way to "do better" was to take certain, shall we say, liberties in my work style. I refused each time to my superiors and continued to perform my position legally (and morally) in every aspect. When I didn't do various things that came up, I was told that I was using "compliance" as an excuse to not perform my job functions. After two of these somewhat formal meetings about my "poor" job performance, I began to ask colleagues at other companies their advice on the situation. I didn't want to look for another job because I had only been working for this company for 6 months when this started becoming a major issue. But I also didn't know what I could do to alleviate the pressure on me to perform illegally.

This was definitely a humbling experience. My superiors consistently told me I did not have the mental capacity to do the job. I was lazy. I was uninformed. I was wrong. I was overreacting. I had poor word choice. I was not eloquent. I did not understand the job. I had poor posture when sitting (I am still baffled at that one).

Basically , I sucked.

I have never really had a self esteem issue. This experience really tested that.

Luckily, one of the people I asked for advice was a former boss. Once he heard what was going on he told me to get out as fast as I could. I think his exact words were, "get a new job NOW."

It turns out that he had a job that needed filling and asked me if I wanted it. I told him I wanted to try and stick it out a year at the old job before I hopped to another one. Part of the reason was because I was afraid of how it was going to look on my resume, the other part was just me being stubborn. I didn't want to admit I had failed.

My catalyst to the new job was a meeting we had in February. Me and my coworkers were told in no uncertain terms that we were expected to do things that were VERY illegal. This was the first time that I knew for sure that I was not the only one they were pressuring to do these activities. We were all speechless. Someone did manage to say, "we can't do that, it's illegal." To which the reply was, "no, it's really a gray area. It is not defined as "illegal activity." Yeah, right.

I called my old boss the very next day and asked how soon I could start. I started getting things wrapped up to quit: cancelled appointments, tied up projects, made a list of what needed to be followed up on after I departed, copied my entire work computer (and made sure to make multiple copies of my documentation of the illegal activity), and so on. One week before I was going to quit I got fired. Technically I wasn't fired, I was asked to leave. My choice was to quit immediately or my boss (let's call him Dick) was going to put together a human resources plan that I couldn't possibly accomplish, and then I would be technically fired when I failed this plan. Wow, such choices.

Dick had no idea that I already had a job lined up. I told him I needed a few days to think about it (just because I wanted to squeeze out every penny I could). I told Dick I would call him on Wednesday and tell him my decision (I work from my house in Texas and he works in California so all this is by phone/email). On Wednesday I called Dick and and told him I would resign and would send him my resignation letter on Thursday.

Then the funniest thing happened...

On Thursday, Dick started calling my home office phone at 6 AM. That's 4 AM California time where he lives. He called so often, my husband unplugged the phone. I never heard the phone ringing since I had decided to sleep in and take the day off. My husband called our home phone around 1 PM and told me that he had unplugged my office phone because Dick was calling every 5 minutes and it was annoying him. He said, "Looks like Dick wanted your resignation letter first thing Thursday." I said, "Well I never committed to any time frame other than Thursday."

Besides, it was going to take a good deal of time to write a resignation letter that didn't contain the word dicksmack at least 10 times.

In that next hour I finally found my way to my home office. I thought I might start throwing out the ton of work papers I had and would no longer need. I plugged the office phone back in and checked the voicemail. I had FIFTEEN messages. On the first few messages Dick firmly stated that he needed 'that item we discussed' immediately. The next few get a little louder and more rambling. A few referenced emails he had sent and phone messages he had also left on my cell phone (damn, did I have that thing turned off too?). Each new message was louder and more frantic than the one before. Every message contained 4 different phone numbers I could reach him at (work line, work cell phone, personal cell, admin phone)...just in case I wasn't sure how to reach him. The last message was almost incoherent because it was sooooooooo loud. All I could understand on it was "This is UNACCEPTABLE. UNACCEPTABLE. UNACCEPTABLE. DO YOU HEAR ME?"

Yeah, the neighbors fucking heard you.

Then I got on and checked my email. Similar pleas for me to contact him immediately and submit the 'item we previously discussed.' Some references to a physician I never contacted (Oh shoot, did I forget to do that?) that needed to be followed up on immediately, but he could take no action to have it resolved until he had 'the item.' Lots of emphasis on how imperative it was for him to follow up by the end of the work day.

I sent the resignation email at 6:15 PM. California time.

Dick was fired the very next week.

Karma's a bitch.

***********************************************************************************

Now in keeping with my format...

My Beef This Week

I have noticed that I am becoming less and less tolerant of people who act entitled or are so self absorbed they have no idea what demands they place on other people. I used to always excuse it, writing them off as oblivious but harmless. Now I'm not so sure. People get busy and their attentions shift....sometimes. But when someone consistently behaves in such a manner, they either know the time/effort/money that it took and believe it is OWED to them, or they are so caught up in themselves that you are not worth their attention.

Is it really so hard to acknowledge the effort/time/expense? Is it too much to ask for reciprocation? Is it really "all about you"?

The source of this rant is a baby shower my mom threw this week. My mom has a friend (let's call her Tina) that falls into the above category. She's known her for decades. Tina's daughter just had a baby and she was going to throw her a shower. This means my mom is going to throw her a shower because Tina could never do this on her own. My mom told Tina that she was very busy this month and would have little time to help Tina organize a shower. Tina said, no problem because she could get Betty to help so Tina schedules the shower anyway. Tina calls my mom a few weeks ago because she can't get the invitation made and needs help. After trying to help her over the phone for over an hour, my mom finally just gets the info from Tina and makes the invitation herself. She emails that invitation to Tina to print and mail. Tina calls back an hour later because of printing problems which cannot be resolved over the phone. My mom ends up driving to Tina's house with the printed invitations (she had to use her own paper stock to do this). There were also some issues with the address labels, but they went about the same way as the invitations. The day before the shower Tina calls my mom and tells her Betty was supposed to come over and help her clean for the shower but is now unable to come. My mom tells Tina she can't help that day because of previous commitments. Tina tells my mom she will clean as much as she can on that day, but asks my mom to come a little early the next day to help her finish cleaning and set up for the shower. On the day of the shower, Tina calls my mom around 7 AM and asks her to come immediately because she was not able to clean and although she had finished the cake, she had not been able to go to the store for sandwiches, fruit, mints, plates, punch, cups, plasticware....My mom goes to the store and buys over $100 of stuff and goes to Tina's house. Betty shows up and they all clean for 3 hours and then prepare the food and set up for about 2 hours. They finish just as the people start to arrive.

My mother gives Tina the receipt of the groceries and Tina promises to repay her, but hasn't yet and will unlikely do so. My mom anticipated this would happen so she did not buy a shower gift and told Tina's daughter that the shower was the gift from her.

Tina remains oblivious to all that my mom has done. She gives her cursory thanks (Betty too) and gives no indication that she understands the magnitude of what my mother has done for her, nor the difficulty my mother had accomplishing all of this because of her already full schedule.

Tina is not a bad person. She's very nice. And is a very loving human being. She is just totally fucking oblivious. My mom and she have developed this relationship over a long period of time and this is part of why this type of interaction with them is so lopsided. Tina has always been a dependent-type personality, but her dependence on my mother to do certain activities or tasks has slowly but steadily grown over almost 30 years.

My mom is the type of person that will go out of her way to help someone. Tina is a person that always needs help. Now my mom is stuck in chronic helper mode. Tina has gotten used to the help and my mom is too nice to say no if it is possible that she can help. It would just be nice if Tina would acknowledge the help my mom gives her with the recognition she had 30 years ago, but patterned behavior has long ago paved over her ability to do this.

I am my mother's daughter. I find myself doing things like this all the time and I'm trying to quit. Not quit helping all together, just quit helping where I can tell there is no recognition of my contribution. I'm too fucking busy to be planning other people's parties for the next 30 years.

*******************************************************************************

I know this has been a long rambling blog, but I'm done. Considering it's been a year, this really isn't too bad. I probably would have kept going but it's almost 3 AM and I have to get up at 6AM to cover a breakfast symposium for a my coworker Tina.

The Deadbeat Landlord

My deepest apologies for falling off the map. A lot has happened in the last few weeks. The most stressful by far is our living situation. It appears that our landlord has not been paying his mortgage for some time. I started my new job, flew back from California and had a notice to foreclose posted on my house when I returned. A few days later a man came by to serve my landlord with papers (it appears he claimed this house as his primary residence).

So now the problem…. It seems we have about 2 weeks to find a new house and move. My husband and I were planning on buying a house in about six months when we could have a larger down payment. This is not going to happen now. Our timetable has been moved up a tad. I talked to the real estate company that manages the property and faxed them over the notice. They called me back and said that he has 5 total properties that are being foreclosed on and they only reason they found out was because of my notice. What the hell? I’ve been paying my rent, where has this money gone? He not only has gotten behind over $10,000 on his mortgage here, but has failed to pay the property taxes and the homeowner’s fees. Everyone wants a piece of our house now, which they think is the house where he lives. And to top it off, I have the same last name as this deadbeat, so things look even more suspicious to outsiders when I claim I’ve never even met the man. What are the odds?

The bank considers us illegal tenants since he had no right to rent the place according to his mortgage. It appears that they will give us anywhere from 24 hours to 7 days to get out. I have offered to take over the mortgage payments as rent (since they are about the same) to try and buy us more time to move. They said they won’t discuss this with me until they actually foreclose because I’m not currently an interested party. When I’m illegally in THEIR house, then I’m interested I guess.

Now I have no idea what my legal rights are, but I’m trying to find out (if anyone out there knows, please shoot me a message). Most of the real estate people have the same response, “you have no rights, get out now.” One of my friends had this happen to her in Florida and she said they had 7 days to get out. They didn’t get all of their stuff out and they lost what was left. The police actually came and made them leave.

So tomorrow my husband and I go on a massive house hunt. We went last week and didn’t find anything we liked. I cannot believe how people live!!!! Why the fuck would you buy a really nice house and then let your dog chew up the molding and the cats pee all over the place? Some places were just unbelievably disgusting, some were merely too big or small or too far from the highway. I’m hoping tomorrow we have better luck.

My Beef This Week

My beef this week is with people who have no sense of responsibility. What the hell is up with our deadbeat landlord? He gets rent from 5 properties (I asked and everyone paid) and pockets it all for 5 months? He should go to jail, and I hope he does. I hope at the very least he has to pay every cent of that money back plus a bunch of fines. But the asshole will probably declare bankruptcy and all of the rest of us responsible suckers will bear the financial burden through some means.

And what is with these other people that can’t even take care of their own homes? What are you teaching your children when you let your pets destroy your home like that (and judging from their house they had several kids)? One house we went into had 3 cats abandoned there INSIDE! I made the real estate agent call animal control. These poor cats had run out of food, who knows how long ago. For water they must have been drinking out of the toilets because they were damn sure peeing everywhere. No litter boxes to be seen so you couldn’t really blame them.

Many people don’t seem to care when they are inconsiderate or irresponsible anymore. They are either so self-centered they have no idea how it affects others or they are so self-centered that it doesn’t matter to them.

I went to a meeting in Los Angeles last week and there was this presentation I went to where I sat in about the third row. Two French physicians sat next to me and talked through the entire presentation in conversational level French so that the rest of us could not hear a damn thing. I asked them to stop and they did for about 30 seconds then it continued on. Other people shushed them or stared daggers into their faces, but it continued through the whole 1-hour presentation. The poor presenter was exasperated. What the fuck? We all paid a lot of money to hear these talks and they were oblivious to how their behavior pissed off over 200 people.

Yesterday I nearly killed a man in Office Depot. It was one of those “last straw” days. This guy held up 2 clerks and a manager for 30 minutes. 30 MINTUES, while he demanded to get his 10 dollar gift certificate, which he technically was not supposed to get since the special started today. He tore into those poor people for a measly 10 bucks and refused to let any other customer pass until he was satisfied. The one clerk who was having to check everyone else out in the store had line a mile long. I waited in that line for almost 30 minutes (after I waited in the asshole line for about 10). The manager finally gave him an in-store credit just to get him out of the store. What the fuck???? If I would have had 10 bucks cash on me, I would have slapped it in his hands and told him what an asshole he was. Instead I told him what an asshole he was for free, which felt just as good and was even cheaper.

So all of you out there, be courteous to your fellow man (unless of course they are being discourteous, then politely tell them to go fuck themselves after checking for weaponry). You never know when you’ll be some gun-toting person’s “last straw.”

The Schizophrenic Fighter

My Beef This Week

I never really understood that I could really love someone and hate someone at the same time until I got married. I remember hating my mom and dad when I was a teenager and even younger, but I never really thought much about it then because it was fleeting. I was usually just pissed because they wouldn’t let me do something I wanted to do, and the anger left as soon as I found something else to do.

I’ve been pissed at my friends and family but not the same way I get pissed at my husband. He can make me so mad that I can’t even speak. No one else can do that, although many have hoped I’m sure. Most of it stems from the fact that I’m a logical methodical human being; he is creative and random and thinks like no one else I’ve ever met. When he is mad, he comes up with these bizarre interpretations of events and comments that would only make sense to me if I were on crack. At first I thought I lacked perspective, but after several people have witnessed our seemingly LSD-induced spats, they told me they were just as baffled as I was. It is like arguing with a schizophrenic, which is why it leaves me speechless.

At work I’m paid to debate. Someone says something, I rebut, it goes on and on in a very professional manner. Typically, no one gets offended. But with my husband, it is like this: Me, “What year did Mama Cass die?” Him, “You never liked my mother!” Me, “What are you talking about? I just asked about Mama Cass, I wasn’t talking about your mother.” Him, “Haven’t I spent enough time with you family? I put up with your fucked up uncle D and your parents were here last weekend.” Me, “WHAT are you talking about?!” Him, “I’m going to divorce you if you talk about my mother like that.” Me, “Whoa, back up. Please tell me what you are talking about.” He then goes into a 5 minute rant about some ‘yo momma’ joke I made in December and how I disrespected his mother. This is where I’m speechless…

I love this man dearly, but he frustrates the fuck out of me. Now I understand (usually) why these random fights happen. They happen when he is pissed at someone else or frustrated/stressed about something and can’t verbalize it. He never was allowed to verbalize frustration or anger when he was younger so now as an adult, he fights like a 5 year-old would. Sometimes the shit he pulls out of his ass makes me laugh, which just pisses him off more, so I try not to laugh now.

But I’m not sure how to deal with this. If I point out what he is doing, i.e, you’re mad at your mom so you’re picking a fight with me since you can’t fight with your mom, he gets mad because I psychoanalyze him. If I try to rationalize and order the argument, he makes something else up to argue about or pretends he didn’t hear me. I can’t argue his way since I’m not schizophrenic. If I refuse to participate while still in the same room, he’ll pull up stuff from before I was born to be mad about. So what I usually wind up doing is leaving the room or the house until he calms down, but I don’t feel like this is the solution either.

These arguments don’t happen very often, only when he is really stressed (maybe 5 or 6 times in the 5 years we’ve been together). But they are weird and unsettling because it is like he’s a different person, an IRRATIONAL person. And I hate that person, but I still love HIM. And so goes my marriage conundrum…

Wash up, it's time for dinner!

Updates:

My mom’s doctor is still a loser. He told her that the fluid in her peritoneal cavity is actually gas. You can palpate it and tell that it is fluid. She said he never even touched her stomach. What an asshole. So she tried to give him another shot, he failed. Now she’s going to someone else.

I got a new job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And it is the one that I really wanted to boot. Apparently they really wanted me too since they offered me more money than I asked for. I have never had that happen before. Now I can really tell that NIH guy to go and screw himself with the bird flu.

Mary started her new job today and had someone call at 11 AM to make sure she wasn’t falling through the cracks. It had been 3 hours! So I think she’s going to be happy and taken care of.

Since things seem to be going so smashingly well today it is hard to rant, but I know I can pull up something…

My Beef This Week

My problem this week is with people who don’t wash their hands after they use the bathroom. Come on! I have been to 5 states in the last week and saw this about 15 times in a week. I almost want to lecture the person leaving the restroom, but I know someday someone would punch me.

In the Microbiology and Immunology Department in grad school, I actually did lecture people that worked there. They should fucking know better. We had herpes and CMV on doorknobs and on random surfaces. We had shit that would scare your doctor growing on the copy machine. I washed my hands BEFORE and AFTER I went to the bathroom. Try explaining how you got that random case of herpes from work, it’s a motivator.

Two years ago at an infectious disease conference where physicians that specialize in INFECTIOUS DISEASES primarily attended, they did an experiment. They had med students sit in the bathrooms and count hand washers vs. non-hand washers. Outcome: Men 50% hand washers, women 90% hand washers. Now the women had the upper hand, pun intended, because there were less of them in the profession and they have entered into it later, WAY after Pasteur discovered microbes. Most of the older men were the culprits. No wonder we are transferring diseases all over the hospitals and having issues like “flesh-eating” Staph and antibiotic resistant Pseudomonas. The fucking doctors aren’t washing their hands after each patient OR after shaking the snake!

My mom says I’ve always been a chronic hand washer, ever since I was little. I think she actually made me that way, but she likes to pretend it’s genetic. I just don’t understand why we continue bad behaviors when we KNOW better. Human nature, I guess. But it’s not like we’re talking about complex behaviors like addiction or positive reinforcement, we are talking about being lazy.

I had one woman rationalize not washing her hands to me by saying that she never touches anything, only the toilet paper does. Guys are the ones that need to wash, she says. Um, ok. Do you think she’d be that confident if I went to the bathroom and then rubbed my hands all over her face? She better pray I’m really fucking accurate. They don't call it the fecal-oral route for nothing!

This is just one of those things that I bang my head against the wall about. We have to enforce hand washing in some patients rooms for healthcare professionals, not just visiting family. If trained, educated professionals can’t be trusted to do it, what is the hope for the general community? Think of all the diseases we could thwart if people all over the world would just pick up a bar of soap.

…now if only I could get everyone vaccinated…

The Smeller and The Puker

So before my rant, let me give you some updates on things.

Mary got a job at another company. She is pretty excited. I actually interviewed with the same company earlier this week and found them to be pretty awesome. I think she’s going to be happy there. She’s hoping I’m going to work there too, but I’m leaning towards another company. It would be cool to work with Mary again though.

I have decided that I’m exhausted on the job hunt thing. I have one more interview on Monday, and then I’m laying low for a while and seeing if anything surfaces. Otherwise I’m going to kill myself flying all over the country giving talks on a hundred different topics. It is mentally and physically exhausting. If nothing happens then I’ll pick things back up in a few weeks.

My mom is not doing so well now. She has a couple of doctors that are stumped and giving up on understanding her symptoms. After she has heard all of my horror stories about how incompetent most physicians are, she’s taking things into her own hands. I have sent her to her doctor with a list of diagnostic tests they need to perform next. I think everyone needs a medical advocate these days. Most people just don’t have one. I taught the medical school students, I KNOW what idiots they are. I currently educate physicians and I’m still not impressed with the median care.

Word of warning for those of you on herbal supplements, I just talked to my third person in 3 months that has had an adverse event because of them. My uncle called this week with significantly elevated liver enzymes. He is the second of my family members to have this happen because of herbal supplements. Additionally, more scientific papers are popping up with similar instances (case studies). There are no FDA regulations on supplements so there are all sorts of impurities in the pills. Both of my family members called me with the same problem and I told them both to quit taking all the herbal shit and then go back for blood work. Perfectly normal. The herbal thing is a nice premise, but with no regulations, they are sticking gravel in those pills to make money. Quality control just costs more and how can you buy your bottle of pills for less than ten dollars if they had to actually MONITOR what was in them? I also had a family friend call me about his newfound kidney failure. Turns out it was the same thing. So for all of you out there taking lots of herbal supplements, beware! If you are going to take them, then do your homework and buy the good stuff that has little inserts talking about how they monitor purity.

So now for my rant…

My Beef This Week

I’m not sure what kind of cruel joke life is playing on me. The older I get, the more acute my sense of smell gets. I can smell when my neighbors in houses on either side of me cook dinner. I can smell garlic on my husband 24 hours after he’s eaten it. I can smell when anyone has had ANYTHING to drink from about 15 feet away. I can smell when people haven’t bathed in more than a day, when most normal people would never notice anything. And passing a fart by me is like trying to pass an 18-wheeler by a bunny rabbit unnoticed.

This heightened olfactory system of mine is something that keeps developing. I’ve always had a keen sense of smell, but it keeps getting keener. It is not something I particularly like since half of what I come in contact with is offensive. I dread going into public bathrooms, sitting next to people who don’t use deodorant, chronic halitosis, and anyone who has eater garlic or onions. I almost vomit or do vomit at least once a week because of assaults on my senses. All of my friends with kids tell me that they develop this when they are pregnant so I’m totally dreading that if we ever have kids I’ll be able to smell the coffee beans in Columbia and my husband won’t be able to touch garlic or onions for 9 months. I truly can’t imagine how much worse it can get. I already have to tell my friends when they have bad breath (if I can’t tactfully get them to take a breath mint or piece of gum) because I would otherwise puke on them when they speak to me.

My mom has a really acute sense of smell and has always been so proud of it. She goes on and on about how she can smell EVERYTHING better than everyone else. I think she was a little bummed to learn Easter weekend that mine is better than hers. I, on the other hand, do not like my new gift. It’s like I’m a superhero: The Smeller, sniffs out crime and missing persons, rights olfactory wrongs.

I’m not really sure what is going on. I previously worked in a morgue and could take all sorts of smelly offenses as you might imagine. I could smell a floater before I entered the building, but it didn’t bother me. No dead body even caused a gag. I always held my friends’ hair when they were puking in the toilet and it never fazed me. Now with my super smelling senses, I know if I got within a 5 mile radius of a morgue or had to be in the same room as puke, I’d puke as well.

Maybe that’s a part of my new evolution. I’m becoming a different superhero: The Puker, pukes on all evildoers to stop injustices. Blugh. Unfortunately, if The Smeller doesn’t tame down, it will be an eternal loop of vomit.