Monday, May 20, 2013

Just some stuff.

My grandmother fell and broke her hip, or more accurately, my grandmother's hip broke and she had a fall as a result. She is having surgery for it tomorrow. I'm more than a little worried and upset. I've been lucky enough to have both my grandmothers around for a good long while.. I mean, not everyone is lucky enough to get to their 30's and still have grandparents around. Hell, I know people not much older than me who have already had to deal with losing both parents. So I'm lucky, I know that much.

Because I realize this, it's all the more upsetting to face the fact that they are both of them not as young as they used to be.

god. Isn't that the most ridiculous saying? Not as young as you used to be. Well no shit. I'm not as young as I used to be either. in fact, i'm a whole day older than i was yesterday. Seriously, what an idiotic saying. I feel like punching myself. It's as bad as saying "It's always in the last place you look!" Again, no shit.

I digress.

So I'm clearly worried, and I don't really know what to do. Damnit.

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So, my hearing sucks. It's terrible. I'm pretty sure years of headphone abuse combined with a history of chronic ear infections (the over prescribing of antibiotics for said infections eventually, I believe, leading to my ulcerative colitis, but that's a story for another day) have done irreversible damage. I don't hear a lot of ambient noise, and I can have trouble making out what people say, especially if they talk low, fast and don't enunciate well.

I know it can be frustrating for those around me, having to repeat things to me, and me not always understanding things the first time around. It's not like it's not frustrating for me. I hate having to ask people to repeat things, or not to whisper to me. I hate having to fill in the blanks sometimes when people talk to me. I hate that I have to watch movies with the closed captioning on half the time, otherwise I have to have the TV blaring. I've had tests done, and looked into hearing aids, but for the actual amount of difference an aid would make is negligible, as apparently the loss "is only minor."

I'm told that I don't have any fluid build-up but... Well, I love to swim. Love it. A few years ago I went cliff jumping at Grundy lake and when I hit the water, it rushed into my ear and I couldn't hear properly for weeks afterward. Now I find that when I swim, if I stick my head too far under, my ears and head feel like they are going to explode with pressure.

I don't know if I should go back for another second opinion or not.

Hell. Not great mood overall. I kind of wish I had my covered porch again so I could watch the storm.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Come to think of it, I'd probably forgo shaving, too. #Revolution

Since its inception, The Well-Travelled One and I have been pretty regular viewers of Revolution, the dystopian-future drama set 15 years after a human-made disaster wipes out almost all electricity (and for some reason, combustion engines, because why not?) and the world, especially North America, goes to shit.

Like, I said, Dystopian.

Without giving away too many spoilers, last night after many many episodes worth of almost non-stop gratuituous violence, we FINALLY got to see a little sex.  Not a lot, because I'm pretty sure this is a network show and not HBO.  I make this assumption due to the fact that for a future where people are getting slaughtered left, right and center, there's surprisingly little cussing.  Graphic violence in multitudes is cool, but please, no cussing or hint of side-boob, right NBC?

So a couple of characters who will remain unnamed ended the episode by engaging in some implied naked fun time.

This morning I got to thinking.. if I were living in a dystopian future would there be any purpose to wearing a bra?  I'm thinking no.  At least not for me.  I know there are women who HAVE to wear bras, otherwise face massive discomfort, so I'm not about to begrudge more endowed ladies their undergarments, even when the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

As my friend Nic pointed out, all that running from zombies, robots, authorities etc. could very well make some kind of support a necessity, in which case I'd probably settle for binding myself instead of oh.. I don't know.. MATCHING BRA AND PANTY SETS?  Somehow I think if my life was constantly under threat, I'd not care much what my underpants looked like, and would be more worried about not constantly shitting them every time someone was trying to kill me.

Like how Aaron looks 90% of the time he's on screen.
Where in a dystopian future with no electricity where our heroes are consistently on the run from forces that would see them dead, does {redacted for spoilers} get a fucking matching Victoria Secret bra and panty set?

Did she sew them herself?

In the immortal words of Sweet Brown, "Ain't nobody got time for that."

Are they shipped by steamships from sweatshops that have gotten even sweatier since the lights (and thus the air conditioning.. because sweatshops totally have THAT) went off?  How the hell would they get to her?  The main protagonists are ALWAYS ON THE MOVE.  CONSTANTLY.

And NOBODY is going to convince me that these are they same underoos she's had for the last fifteen years.  The show is set in 2027, so she'd have to have bought them last year, in 2012 at the latest.  I'm a buyer of underpants and a purchaser of brassieres, and the shit that gets manufactured and sold in stores in present-day North America is NOT made to withstand 15 years of fighting, killing, running, plotting and the occasionally beating against a rock to launder them.  She would have stabbed herself with the underwire a thousand times over by now.

I guess in an electricity-void, dystopian future where hair always looks conditioned, EXIT signs in building still glow red and people inexplicably drink whiskey from late 19th-century antique glass bottles in spite of the fact that their 15-year-old empty Canadian Club 26ers would probably work just as well, a little bit of realism when it comes to the characters gotchies is probably too much to ask.


Thursday, May 9, 2013

Dream journaling: Those who work in glass office buildings...

I woke up oddly disoriented after this one. It's been a while since I've been able to recount the details of a dream vividly.

I'm in a kitchen talking to one of my best friends about a party she's throwing for her daughters. She's freaking out a bit because in this reality, it's custom to purchase gifts for party guests, not the other way around. I'm not on the phone but I'm not really sure I'm speaking to her in person either. While we talk, I'm trying to get at a small CD player on the counter because I am determined to make my ex-husband listen to "Lovecraft in Brooklyn" for nor reason other than it's a pretty awesome song that I think everyone should listen to.

Having given up, I drive into work. Downtown is jam packed busy, so by the time I get there, it's after dark. My friend is there with her daughters. She is meeting me since I decided to give her some money to buy my kids present, since I don't really get why she's buying them anything when it's her kids birthday.

Getting out of the car, I notice that a huge crowd has gathered outside made up of my co-workers, Tim horton's employees (in this reality, Tim's hasn't moved down the street yet) and other various people who also work in the building. There is the sound of commotion and crackling electricity. Lights in the windows are flickering off and on and I vaguely recall that the building is scheduled for demolition. It seems odd to me that we all showed up for work anyway, and distressing that we're all standing in the parking lot instead of getting the hell out of there.

There an eerie silence as suddenly all the lights in the windows flicker and go black. I start to turn and run, but not before each individual glass pane starts shattering and blowing out wards. Shards and bits of glass rain down on the crowd and I run, admits the screaming, eyes closed against the bits of glass that have blown into my face and hair. Blind but aware of my friend and her girls near by I run across the street, oblivious to oncoming traffic, until I reach the opposite parking lot.

Once across the street, I carefully brush the glass off myself and pick it out of my hair and turn to survey the damage and wait for the eventually collapse, expecting something like what you see in those stock-footage reels of collapsing buildings.

I look over and a group of people have picked up my car and have managed to fold it like one of those collapsible laundry hampers. No, no no, I tell them but they carry it across the lot, unfold it and lovingly dust off the debris.

Later I am at an outdoor cafe, run by the guy who hosts our open mike. I can't get to my guitar, the place is too crowded. My Nanny is there and I'm trying to have a conversation with her, but my phone rings. A voice on the other end speaks in a muffled voice in a language I can't understand. The voice sounds apologetic, so assuming they have a wrong number I try to disengage, but each time I do, the voice on the other end gets belligerent and threatening. Finally I tell the voice that I am not paying to listen to this and hang up, but I worry after that the voice will call back to berate me some more.