I decided to get sassy and create my first ever that’s so ghetto award.  Now, to win a that’s so ghetto award, a blogger has to be special.  They have to be funny.  They have to maintain their blog and keep writing posts, not taking off four months here and there.  And most of all, they have to be a little twisted, and at times, a little ghetto.  They have to write a blog post so damn funny that I’m really laughing out loud while reading it, and not just typing lol in response to what they post.

The winner of my first ever that’s so ghetto award goes to Vinyl Villager, a blogger’s blogger who always makes you laugh and manages to balance good writing, good pictures, outrageous hilarity, and faithfulness to his readers, including me, The Girl from the Ghetto.  Not only does he come up with great posts every week, but the man WENT TO A PRISON and drove through Deliverance Country to adopt a dog that he didn’t want.  Please, read his entire post here and tell him TGFTG sent ya!

This blog award also makes me a tiny bit sad, as it reminds me of all the bloggers I’ve met in the past eighteen months.  Sometimes my blog friends come and go out of my life without reason; some leave suddenly and never blog again, forcing us all to wonder if they are dead or just burnt out; and worst of all, a few blog friends have stop visiting me, stopped responding to my comments, and went as far as taking me down from their blogroll and/or deleting my comments because they viewed me as competition, which is both hilarious and sad.  Blogging is all about building a community, a family, and not simply posting certain types of posts that are only written to snag the outsiders and the market attention.  Vinyl Villager gets this.  Let me make it simple and use my 2nd favorite Kevin Costner baseball movie (Bull Durham #1, of course!) to illustrate my point.

Here is a fun travel quiz to see how many states you have visited.  The average American has been to 8 states, and I’ve been to 37 states, plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico,  so how do you match up?  Keep in mind, landing in airports doesn’t count.  My rule is that you either had to vacation in the state,  or drive through and pee in the states you list.  So, if you drove through Texas and never stopped for a potty break, it doesn’t count here. 

(Me & my friend B in Puerto Rico)

 

I love to travel, and have been lucky enough to even go to Europe twice.  Here I am in Paris, which I’ve been to twice.

 

 

Surprisingly, my travel adventures really began as an adult.  Before the age of twenty I had only been to Wisconsin, Illinois and Canada.  It didn’t hurt being a flight attendant, either. 

(Graduation Day)

To play along, you can either write a blog post with your quiz score and link here, comparing our scores, or you can play by commenting with your answers.  

 

Alabama -
Alaska -
Arizona – X
Arkansas -
California – X
Colorado – X
Connecticut – X
Delaware -
Florida – X
Georgia – X
Hawaii -
Idaho – X
Illinois – X
Indiana – X
Iowa – X
Kansas – X
Kentucky – X
Louisiana -
Maine -
Maryland – X
Massachusetts – X
Michigan – X 
Minnesota – X
Mississippi -
Missouri – X
Montana – X
Nebraska – X 
Nevada – X
New Hampshire -
New Jersey – X
New Mexico – X
New York – X
North Carolina – X
North Dakota -
Ohio – X
Oklahoma – X
Oregon -
Pennsylvania – X
Rhode Island -
South Carolina – X
South Dakota – X
Tennessee – X
Texas – X
Utah – X 
Vermont -
Virginia – X
Washington – X
West Virginia – X
Wisconsin – X
Wyoming – X
Bonus – Washington DC – X and Puerto Rico – X

Last summer I was an extra on set of a cool roller derby movie called Whip It.  I was just a screaming fan during the derby skate scenes, nothing too special.  I had a great time, got to talk to Jimmy Fallon, and had the fabulous Drew Barrymore tell me that I’m fabulous.  It was a dream come true for a nerd movie buff like me.  Plus, the movie looks damn good.

How excited was I to see that the movie trailer was finally released about thirty minutes ago.  I was in the background when the filmed Ellen Page jumping over another girl on the track.  Couldn’t see if I was in the shot though, darn it.  Maybe after I watch it 50 or so times. 

The movie is coming out on October 9th, and if you want to hear more about the film and my experience you can read all about here:

http://thegirlfromtheghetto.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/my-days-as-an-extra-on-the-movie-set-of-whip-it-staring-ellen-page-and-directed-by-drew-barrymore/

Whip It is the directorial debut for Drew, and I wish her the best of luck.  She was very kind, professional and fun on set and I am looking forward to seeing the film very much!

Update: After careful viewing of the trailer, I’ve seen myself in at least four shots, all at the roller rink.  For your viewing pleasure you can see two pictures of me in the trailer now.  Not the best photos, as it was via my cell phone.  I can’t wait to see myself in the movie!  Or, even, just the movie.  

Here I am by Ellen Page.  Yes, the arm. Sigh.  For a split second I took my arm down but I could not freeze frame the trailer to take that photo.

And here I am behind Jimmy Fallon.  This was a great area to stand because after each take Drew and the other directors and camera guys would let me watch with them.  They would let me watch because this one director enjoyed how interested I was in seeing how each shot was filmed.  Very cool.  Plus, I wasn’t an obvious camera hog like some of the 20 year olds extras.  

    

Were you ever lucky enough to read the perfect book at the perfect time it your life?  It is an amazing feeling for any person, and not just for book nerds like me.  Today I finished my most recent perfect book, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert.   It is a book I’ve picked up and put down in bookstores for several years now.  Lately, I’ve been lingering by it, and about eight days before it was mailed to me as a gift, I almost bought it.  I didn’t buy any books that day, and I can’t answer as to why.  But when my friend sent me this book as an act of kindness due to complications from my hysterectomy, I knew somehow that destiny wanted me to read it, and as a gift rather than my own free will, because it was fates way of sending me a message – You must read this, and now.  This book was my perfect book of 2009 because I’ve been struggling with my health, and the loss of adventure and living life to the fullest.  When you have some of the stupid conditions I have, you can’t even make it out of bed on some weekends after a long week of work.  I miss doing things like driving across the country for 19 days in a $75,000 borrowed Cadillac, seeing a pack of wild mustangs running through the dessert while rock climbing, snorkeling under the influence in the possible shark filled waters of Puerto Rico, or hiking in Yellowstone violently hung over after a hard night of drinking with college professors and Australian cowboys.  I once traveled the world, had many adventures with total strangers, good friends and my hubby, and took notes and photos of it all.  It is a dream of mine to combine my love of travel and writing and do something like what Ms. Gilbert has done, by writing an inspiring book about my adventures in life and how they healed my soul.  I have decided that I’m going to stop thinking of myself as sick, and perhaps I can get back my old outer strength by having a strong inner strength first.  I can’t afford traveling to Bali like Ms. Gilbert did, but maybe I can find something here in the state of Michigan that I once had while on my road trip out west.  In the end, life isn’t about what you wore, where you lived, what you did for a living, but how you lived and enjoyed your life.  Now that I’m losing my job in two months due to a lot of unfair and crappy reasons, it is a perfect time to try and find myself again. 

This book is based on the real life experiences of the writer and her one year quest to do what she always wanted to do, which was learn to speak Italian, to study under an Indian Guru to find her spiritual path, and to learn how to live in this world and enjoy its delights while devoting herself to God.  I find all three quests fascinating, especially her desire to spend four months in Rome learning the language.  I am an Italian who was raised in an Italian home where people only spoke the language when they needed to talk in private or needed to swear badly.  I never learned the language (Just the swear words) and I’ve always wanted to experience Italy as a person rather than just a world traveler.  As for the yoga and the search within, I’ll say that I’ve always been fascinated by eastern religions and philosophy, and I give thanks to The Beatles, my English professor Dr. R., and an ex-wife of an old friend who introduced me to the beliefs of the east.  I’ve never been able to pick one religion and stick with it, as I wasn’t raised as a true Catholic (Being a bastard and all in the 70s) but being raised by them certainly gave me the old fashioned guilt.  Having a spiritual guide sounds very interesting to me.  And learning to live in the world and enjoy life, who doesn’t want that?  So, after reading the first seven or eight chapters, I was in it for the long haul. 

I don’t want to give away too much, that is not fair to anyone who hasn’t read this book.  Let me say that I loved this book, loved it so much that I had to stop reading it for an entire week, so I could savor it.  I love to travel, to write, and, my god, to eat, and I have been searching for my own religion and inner peace since childhood.  This book really has me thinking about my life, and what I want to do with the rest of it.  And, one spoiler, just wait until you get to page 274.  I’m honestly sad that I finished this book today, because no longer can I look forward to reading it in small doses every day. Eat, Pray, Love is the best book I’ve read in all of 2009.

“[My guru] says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you are fortunate enough. But that’s not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it…”
—Elizabeth Gilbert

If any of you have had the same experience with another book, please share your story here.  Also, those who have read this book, tell me what your WORD is.  Mine has always been ADVENTURE.

Do you ever just sit back and think of all the things you are sick of in life?  I certainly did today, and I’m going to list what I’m sick of this week for your reading pleasure right now.  Maybe I’ll do this as a weekly thing. 

• Perez Hilton.  He is so stupid, throwing around gay slurs at will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas.  Especially after he went after that Miss California for honestly admitting that she believes in, and I quote, opposite marriage.  I’m loving that allegedly the Peas band manager socked him right in his big fat face.  This Perez guy makes me sick, and it is not because I’m jealous of his blog success either.  Sure, I’d like to make the money he does, but I’m not about to become a gay man-childwho wears pink, lives in L.A., and draws penises on celebs photos.  I think he and I both know that he doesn’t have any competition from me.  I just want to scream from the rooftops, Come on already, I’m so over you!  There are at least fifty other bloggers more funnier, better looking, and who have funnier websites.  Can’t whoever is in charge of  making things and people trendy take him off the list?  Ugh.  SO.OVER.HIM!

• Old shows, old movies, and even old stars being remade into new, hip versions of the classics.  Sure, I adored the old 90210 so much that I bought a 90210 version of Twister, but was it ok to be curious enough to watch the new 90210, twice?  No.  I got over the new 90210 quick when I released it sucked and the girls were so skinny I could hear their tummies roar on my tv.  I even watched more than one season of The Bachelor until a guy I knew from college (Yes, Bob Guiney) became The Bachelor, and I laughed and laughed because the schmuck I knew in college who was not known as a lothario became one on tv, strangely, right before my eyes.  Puke.  Flash forward a million years later, and I am still fatigued by every other dating show, including, and most especially, Daisy of Love.  As for the new Melrose Place, I say no thank you.  Transformers?  It sucked then and it still sucks now.  Land of the Lost?  Good in a cheesy way back then, just cheesy now.  I’ll take Bachelor Party over The Hangover any day.  As for Dance Your Ass Off, I watched three performances and died a little inside.  I’ll take The Biggest Loser over it any day.  As for music, who would ever dream of remaking these classic 80s songs: Mercy Mercy Me, Love Shack, There’s Only One Way To Rock, Fade To Black, Like a Prayer, Imagine, Footloose, Come On Eileen, Do You Think I’m Sexy, Living On A Prayer, We Will Rock You.  Oh, yeah, Paris Hilton tried, and now her cd is in the $1 bin at The Dollar Store.  Movies are the worst offender and while there is a long list of bad remakes, sequals & adaptations, I’ll just name a few of the more horrible ones:  Hulk, Pyscho, The Shaggy Dog, Bewitched, The Dukes of Hazzard, Poseidon, The Island Of Doctor Moreau, Planet of the Apes, and the holy trio, Halloween, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.  If you throw in Prom Night and Dawn of the Dead, my head explodes.  While I adored many a zombie or horror film back in the day, I’m getting just a wee bit quasey of the modern day versions of these classics.  Footloose and Fame, I’m sure you will be nowhere near the greatness of the originals, but I pray you will be at least decent enough to provide me a good rental I can watch with my teen.  Hollywood, there will only be one Paul Newman, one Jimmy Stewart, one De Niro, one Woody Allen, one Julie Andrews, one Robert Redford, one Depp, one Brando, one Marilyn, one Nicholson, and two separate Hepburns, so please, please, please stop spoon feeding us new stars who you try to force into the old molds.  Those molds are broken and gone forever.  Hell, who am I kidding, there is only one Kevin Costner, one John Cusack, one George Clooney, one Brad Pitt, and one Harrison Ford.  Lastly, I have a note to Megan Fox – you will never, ever be as hot, crazy or adventurous as Angelina Jolie, so please stop trying already. 

• Plastic bags.  They last forever, and are destroying our environment.  Have you ever seen that program on them?  Scary.  As much as I hate paper bags that always rip when I’m carrying in my groceries,  I’ll take them any day over these crappy, flimsy, dog poop filled environmental nightmare.  My library got smart, and now they pass out a cloth bag that you actually check out and return with the books.  Whoever came up with that idea is a genius.  Before you bitch at me to use my own green bags, I have them, and forget them in my car every single time I go into any type of store. 

• Michael Jackson coverage.  If I see his poor daughter Paris cry on my tv one more time I’m going to cry myself.  Enough already people.  I’m done, your done, we are all done.  I don’t want to hear any murder conspiracy theories, either.  However, feel free to make fun of Corey Feldman as much as possible.  What as ass for wearing that to the funeral.  The gloves were classy compared to his get up.

• Jon and Kate Gosselin.  They file for divorce, put the show on hiatus, and we sigh a big sigh of relief, and get over them.  And then, days later, when the publicity dies for them, partly due to MJ death, they come out and publicly say that they won’t be responding to any media coverage.  I was glad we all moved on.  But it lasted about as long as my hysterectomy stay.  Kate comes out of the woodwork, showing off all around town and speaks out about something I don’t even care to remember.  They followed up by their 4th of July public display with J&K at the house together.  Now, Jon is talking about his new girlfriend, Hailey Glassman, who is 22 and .  Again, I am shouting from the rooftop Stop the madness Gosselins!  Quit parading around town like Paris Hilton.  Your show now sucks.  We liked your show when it was about your cute kids, but we don’t like it now.  And, for the record,  no one likes or cares about either of you two.  If we did, you would still be getting that third book “Love Is in the Mix: Making Meals into Memories” published this November!  And for the love of God, wear a bathing suit cover up when going out in public.  Your ass had eight kids, and it’ll never be sexy again.

 

I thought it would be fun to do a movie quote quiz using quotes from some of my favorite movies.  Try not to cheat, but I know it is hard not to with the darn internet.  I’m going to pick less popular quotes to make it a tiny bit harder.

1. Wait a minute… nice boys don’t kiss like that.  [Response] Oh, yes, they fucking do.
2. When you have insomnia, you’re never really asleep… and you’re never really awake.
3. Some men get the world. Others get ex-hookers and a trip to Arizona.
4. That’s thirty minutes away. I’ll be there in ten.
5. All I’m saying is that somewhere out there is the man you are supposed to marry. And if you don’t get him first, somebody else will, and you’ll have to spend the rest of your life knowing that somebody else is married to your husband.
6. Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?
7. There’s no point to any of this. It’s all just a… a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details. You know… a Quarter-Pounder with cheese, those are good, the sky about ten minutes before it starts to rain, the moment where your laughter become a cackle… and I, I sit back and I smoke my Camel Straights and I ride my own melt.
8. Maybe I didn’t really know you. Maybe you were just a mirage. Maybe the world is full of food and sex and spectacle and we’re all just hurling towards an apocalypse, in which case it’s not your fault. I’m been thinking about all these things and… you’re probably standing there monitoring. And one more thing – about the letter. Nuke it. Flame it. Destroy it. – It hurts me to know it’s out there. Later.
9. What we do in life echoes in eternity.
10. Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.
11. Wonderful girl. Either I’m going to kill her or I’m beginning to like her.
12. For us to live any other way was nuts. Uh, to us, those goody-good people who worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to work every day, and worried about their bills, were dead. I mean they were suckers. They had no balls. If we wanted something we just took it. If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again
13. Oh come on. Look who’s talking. You’ve been seeing a psychiatrist for 15 years. You should smoke some of this. You’d be off the couch in no time.
14. The downside of coming off junk was I knew I would need to mix with my friends again in a state of full consciousness. It was awful. They reminded me so much of myself, I could hardly bear to look at them.
15. What are you waiting for? You’re faster than this. Don’t think you are, know you are. Come on. Stop trying to hit me and hit me.

I was filled with hope Wednesday when the man I voted for, the man who told me YES WE CAN announced he was coming to Warren, Michigan next Tuesday to hold a town hall meeting to talk to Michigan families.  This visit is his first visit to Michigan since being elected president.  Naturally, I knew this meant we were going to talk about unemployment, as it is all anyone can think about in our state.  Just about every family I know is hit by our fragile economy right now.  And for the record, it is not just the auto workers, so please stop saying that.  You are driving me nuts!  I assure you, workers in every field, every industry are being laid off or fired left and right.  I thought to myself oh my god, here is my chance to speak to a man who can help save our state, maybe even help me find hope.  Michigan has the nation’s highest unemployment rate at 14.1 %.  Even I will be joining the unemployed soon, as I was recently told that my non-auto industry job was being cut due to budget cuts.    

 Sadly, about two hours ago I found out that President Obama will only be talking to students and staff of Macomb Community College and tickets will not be offered to the general public.  While I can appreciate him choosing to talk to students  because I can remember how inspired I was after seeing Bill Clinton speak at Michigan State University in 1992, I’m utterly pissed that people like me can’t ask Obama for help in person.  There are so many people out of work here, and I know when most of the public finds out about this they are going to have the same reaction as I had:

NO YOU CAN’T!

How can my president do this to me, to us?  We NEED the opportunity to vent, to ask where is our stimulus money, and to get a little hope.  Michigan has lost over 300,000 jobs in just the first five months of 2009.  It is only going to get worse once our budget year ends this September and the books will need to be balanced.  That is when the next round of state cuts will come around.  More people having to go on unemployment, which keeps getting extended here.  How can our state afford to keep paying people who are out of work, without raising taxes?  More people flee the state and lose or abandon their homes every day.  I have a friend who lives in Warren and she is the only personstill living in her block.  Seriously, her entire neighborhood has been abandoned since last summer, which makes her want to abandon her own home, as she is a target for thieves now.  Without people working, the domino effect is very rampant here in Michigan.  Charities are losing funds left and right.  Businesses can’t afford to stay afloat here.  Our services are and will continue to decline.  Don’t even get me stated on the Detroit Public Schools. 

Since I work in civil service and have a degree in that field, what other choice for work do I have?  It isn’t like we have tons of openings for government jobs in the state.  We government jobs we have now are being forced to be cut back since we don’t have enough tax money.  Even worse, some fields have decided to never replace open positions with full time/benefits staff, just part time staff.  Where is my future headed?  I don’t want to sit at home or work part time, I want a darn career.  I was attending graduate school, but with student loans that cost over $450 a month, how can I afford to go back to college, pay my bills, and save up for my kids education, let alone pay off those higher student loans once I graduate?  I can’t afford to (Or physically tolerate) retraining as a nurse and I need an answer as to what I can do?  We can’t move.  There is nothing left to cut in our home budget except a vehicle, and by next spring we will be doing just that.  Since MI has no mass public transportation system I laugh in horror at my future, when I’ll have to drive my husband to and from work on the days I have the kids or look for work.  Many of my friends from college have moved out of state to find work and taking their tax dollars and knowledge with them.  The rest of us left behind, the auto workers and the non-auto workers are struggling to pay our bills and keep our houses, and we will be forced to take jobs that pay $8 and $9 an hour when our minimum wage is $7.40 an hour.  Does this really seem fair?  I life a modest life.  I don’t need and have never had a lot of money.  But the last time I made $9 an hour was about twelve years ago, and this was before I had my degree.  I’ve been looking non-stop for jobs for about five weeks now, and in that time I’ve qualified for and applied to one job.  One.         

I appreciate mostly everything else this man has done for the US since his election, but why did he do this to Michigan?  Why diss the unemployed, the people who need his help, his inspiration?  It sure seems like a cop out to me, and another bad decision, just like his letter to Michael Jackson’s parents.  I’m not thrilled about his idea for a national health care plan, either, but at least I think he thinks it is a good idea.  I grew up on welfare and Medicaid and can honestly tell you Medicaid (And welfare) sucks.  Also, just look at Canada, where they have national health care.  A lot of Canadians have told me they are unhappy with it.  When I previously worked in health care, many of our Canadian patients told me they choose to leave their country and pay out of pocket for their health care here in the Detroit area, because they couldn’t get in to see their doctors fast enough in Canada!  But I digress.  I see how hard he is working and I’m glad he is signing acts such as the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act, the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, and the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act.  I just wonder if my president either has no idea how bad things are here in this state, or is he avoiding us?  I’m thinking he can skip going to St. Louis and sick around the state longer to address a solution to the Michigan economy, because, in the end, isn’t listening to Americans express their fears just a little more important than throwing a darn baseball? 

Will those of you who care help me by linking this post on Twitter and your blogs and other social networking sites?  I’d love it if someone who can help President Obama change his mind would read this.  Perhaps there is a chance that the public here in Michigan will get a chance to speak with him in person as we deserve.  I know that I’m dreaming, but, I am a dreamer.  

Goodreads, I’m in love.  I discovered this fabulous book website yesterday via Twitter, and spend about SIX HOURS there.  (Yes honey, that was why I was still awake last night!)  I am not the type of person who spends six hours on a website, EVER, even my own blog.  I love how you can look up any old book and it is there, saying hello, as in Hello Lover!  I love being able to rate a book and add it to your Read Bookshelf.  I went nuts and so far have added over 400 books that I’ve read.  I can’t wait until I start writing my book reviews.  I’ve got my laptop downstairs and I’m reading to start looking on my own book shelves, book by book, to be able to keep adding more.   Because I’m that obsessed with it!  As in having the time of my life with it.  Go ahead and watch the video, because I know most of you want yo.  Because the way I felt dancing at my junior and senior proms to this song is the pretty close to the feelings I have for www.goodreads.com.

I’m not able to sit and think of twenty five books that I’ve read and recommend them to a you, so coming up with a list of over 400 books may sound impossible to you, but it was not.  Goodreads has all sorts of ways to browse books, and it was actually simple to find all of these old books.  I found out one of my favorite authors, Pat Conroy, is finally coming out with a new book soon, and without visiting this website I’m sure I would have never know it.  I haven’t been in Borders for about four weeks now and it is killing me.  I’m not really able to go out and browse and buy books anymore since I’m recovering from surgery AND I’m getting laid off in the fall, so my To Read bookshelf on Goodreads has over 40 books on it.  Perhaps these books will find their way to me eventually, or I’ll get lucky and find a job in the state with the highest unemployment rate in the country.  We will see.  I’m just happy to have a place where I can finally keep track of what I want to read and what I’ve already read.   

I know many of you readers love books, so please check out my profile, join yourself, and then follow me there.  It’s like a social networking site as well.  But you don’t have to utilize that function if you don’t want to.  I often forget to blog about books here, so this is a great way to find out what I’m reading and what I could recommend to you or vise versa.  They have the coolest widgets that can be displayed on most websites, except of course here on WordPress, king of anti-JavaScript.  Even still, they have a small widget available for WordPress, which you can see in my NEED ME 24/7 area to the right, where you can click to see what I’m currently reading.  As for Non-WordPress bloggers and Myspace and Facebook people, I’m totally jealous. 

http://www.goodreads.com/nerdgirlblogger

Is ADHD killing the blogger? 

I’ve noticed a bit of new trend in the online world … and I’m not sure how I feel about it.  As for the world of WordPress blogging, I keep coming across other bloggers whose blog posts are getting shorter and shorter, and they throw in more photos and links to other sources.  (I am not talking about my own blog friends, relax!)  You see less substance and person thoughts in popular blogs today, and more pop culture and celebrity news.  WordPress bloggers, while I enjoy reading endless blogs about Michael Jackson, please remember that I also still want to read your personal stories and cultural observations.  Now, I admit that I really have ADHD myself, and you can look around my blog and laugh at all of my stories and images.  I’ve got everything on this page, because my brain wants to talk about everything I’m thinking all at once.  So, while writing this post, I know I’m in danger of someone telling me hello, look at yourself!  But I try to balance, and write about me and my world as much as the world outside my world and what I think about it.  But I digress …. If you read some of the top WordPress posts, you may notice that there are barely any words on the page.  I’m not exactly criticising this change, just questioning it.  I myself prefer to read long, detailed and wonderfully written posts from enthusiastic, funny, and charming writers.  But, I do seem to have less and less time each day to read other blogs.  Would it be easier for me to catch up with other bloggers if we all wrote less and more ofter?  Have shorter blog posts become the new norm for us WordPress bloggers?  Or is it simply that people have less time or less effort to write every thought and detail of their opinion and lives anymore?  

When you look at Twitter, the new hot website in the online community, where 19 year old kids get book deals, and Perez Hilton keeps on getting more famous, you see people writing everything they need to say in 140 characters, almost constantly or at least every day.  I Twitter myself, but I’m not sure if I love it, like it, or just tolerate it.  I pass time there by finding book chatters, good causes, government agencies and leaders as much as I like to check out lame Twitters.  But, to be honest, Twitter just makes my head spin.  But then, I think about how much I enjoy the people who really have it down, like comedians and cleaver writers who just spew out the best one liners over and over to show off how funny and fabulous they are.  Some users, such as the corporations and celebrities, just keep putting out check this out with a link to something about them.  Not that there is anything wrong to self promotion, as I do it myself, lol, but when certain Tweeters follow no one else, and never talk to anyone else on Twitter, then why does it even matter what they are saying?  I’ve tried out and stopped following a lot of boring celebrities.  Reading a celebrity say I went here or met this person last night over and over is driving me a little nutters.  Especially when I know about 1,500 news sources are saying or writng the same thing about them, almost at the same time.  Ah, the madness!  If you look at someone like Oprah, who is one of the top Twitter followers, she only follows 14 others, and has only put out around 50 Tweets.  To me, she says everything she needs to say on her show, website, charities, and magazine.  What else is there left for Oprah to teach me on Twitter?  Sigh. 

By blogging, and now Tweeting, I never wanted to bring an end to traditional newspapers, news reporting, or printed books (Damn you Kindle, go away!)  I thought sharing my thought online was fun, and I just wanted to put myself out there, make some people laugh, practice writing, and maybe get an offer to write and get paid forit someday.  Now I feel a bit guilty about it.  I am old school, I love reading a newspaper, subscribing to a ton of magazines, and going into a book store and dropping $20 on a new book I’ve been waiting years for.  But, with the tech revolution, what is going to be left from the old days once the smoke clears?  Will all of our news come in one liners?   Will bloggers just put up one paragraph posts with thirty seven tags?  I think maybe so.  I think Twitter is going to win the battle.  I adore having the internet, and how easy it is for me to now plan my own vacations, do research for school, work, and my blog posts, and a million other things, but what is it doing to all of us as a society?  Are we throwing our communication skills out of the window?  I miss writing old fashioned letters and post cards.  In college I’d write to about thirty people each month.  I certainly don’t email thirty people, let alone visit their Facebook pages now.  I barely call my friends, or have them call me.  I’m a texter.  When your friends have screaming kids in the background, or when you sit in cubicles so small surrounded by noisy people, you learn to become this way.  I even see my own stepdaughter texting all the time, and it kills me.  I tease her all the time, guess correctly what she is texting to her friends, and try to tell her about the joys of the old days when you waited all weekend to get that special phone call from your friend, you know, the one where she details every moment of a date or a confrontation and you get to weigh in, give your opinion.  When three letter texts become the norm – BFF, LOL, WTF, what has been lost? 

All I know is this – I think bloggers, and really, all people everywhere, should do what they do best, stay true to who they are, and ignore what the other more popular people are doing and wearing.  Sure, a fancy dress is nice, but isn’t whats under the dress that counts?  And I don’t mean a fake rack, either.  I mean the heart, the soul, and the mind.  I’m not about to get plastic surgery. 

I am who I am.  On WordPress I am The Girl from the Ghetto.  And on Twitter I am NerdGirlBlogger.  You can get the the best of both my worlds.   

http://twitter.com/NerdGirlBlogger

Sometimes, fate works in mysterious ways.  My childhood friend is engaged to a sweetheart of a girl who I have only met once in my life, as they live very far away.  Thankfully, we have been able to get to know each other as we both blog.  After hearing how sick I was my first weekend home from the hospital, she asked me to name a book she could send to me to make me feel better.  I instantly picked a book that would make me laugh, as that was exactly what I needed, and poof, my Fed Ex guy was here just days later with Are You There Vodka, It’s Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler.  I read the book late Friday night in one sitting while laying in the world’s softest bed at my college BFF’s house.  Of course it made me laugh, and I was thankful for the first laughter I had in days.  I adore Chelsea Handler, and her show Chelsea Lately, but it is her books that make me laugh the hardest.  In Vodka, Chelsea writes about her life, but the first story killed me as it was about her childhood.  She basically got Goldie Hawn to send her an autographed picture after she wrote to her, asking for help in convincing her classmates that she was staring in Private Benjamin Two with her.  I stumbled upon Chelsea in 2006 when I heard her on my morning radio show years ago promoting My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One night Stands, and I have been hooked on her since then. 

The next day my friend suggested that I read a memoir that she had been telling me to read for months now.  We both love our memoirs!  It is by a new author who grew up with a crazy sexual mother, not unlike my own mother.  I finished that book Saturday night.  It is called Her Last Death: A Memoir and it is by Suzanna Sonnenberg.  It was very good, a bit slow at first, and then it read so fast my head was spinning from all of the stories and excitement, pain and dysfunction.  Not to mention all the sex in this book.  Wow!  While I went the virginal route due to my mothers open affairs, Ms. Sonnenberg followed in her mothers footsteps (In a sense) and learned how to use sex as a coping skill, educational tool, weapon, and pure pleasure fullfiller.  What I was intrigued by was her first affair, with her prep school English teacher, and how his wife allowed him to do this, even though she taught Suzanna as well.  Because of that affair, this writer got a world class education in literature, and she was so darn Freudian to me I couldn’t help but be fascinated with her life story and her mother’s part in it.  Not only did she live a very interesting life with her mother, but she had her fair share of run ins with famous musicians, had a famous grandfather and lived in both New York and Montana, two places I dream to visit again.   

Yesterday I began reading the most fabulous book that my friend sent to me Wednesday as a surprise, a book so perfect for me that I don’t want to finish it, titled Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.  I love to travel, and write, and eat, and I have been searching for my own religion since childhood, as you may remember from an earlier blog post titled Angels & Demons – Why I Like How Dan Brown Makes Me Think About Religion which you can view here: http://thegirlfromtheghetto.wordpress.com/2009/05/25/angels-demons-why-i-like-how-dan-brown-makes-me-think-about-religion/  This book really has me thinking about my life, and what I want to do with the rest of it.  Of course, the book is a memoir, and it is about a womans search for herself, for happiness, and for her religion, and she takes a year off and spends a year finding it (Hopefully, as I’m not done with it yet!) in Italy, India and Indonesia.  The book makes me long to travel, even though I’m getting laid off and I’m in bed, resting from major surgery, because when I am on vacation I feel like this freedom and inner peace I am unable to experience anywhere else.  When I’m on vacation I feel like I’m truly able to be myself and just live life like I should be able to year round.  Traveling is a wonderful gift that I began to give to myself in my twenties, even though I was dead broke, attending college and working two jobs, as I needed to feel free to experience life and joy by taking my photographs, visiting nature, museums, and beautiful cities filled with culture, history, and romance.  I even journal about what I have learned and experienced on vacation.  I’ve been to forty states and twelve countries and surround my home with the images I took of all of these places, but that is not enough.  

If I was offered one wish from a magic genie, I know that I’d pick a career in both writing and travel (Because I am a compulsive hard worker and could never survive life without a job) rather than be handed a fortune or fame as a writer or even being magically cured of my illnesses, because I just simply want to create something that inspires people or just makes them happy.  I’ve always wanted to help people, and if I could do that by writing about my life and experiences while traveling, and open their eyes to the world, that would be a wonderful gift.  I’ve been a flight attendant and found a bit of joy in that.  I would jump at the chance of being offered a writing gig for a travel magazine or website, but would just croak if I was offered a book deal to write about my life and my travels along the way and how they helped me survive my life.  Perhaps if a little of my photography was thrown in I could die a happy woman.  But I have no idea how to go after something like this.  I have no degree in English or Journalism, just a Bachelor of Science, some masters credits in humanities and a PhD. in the school of life.  I have no internship experience in the business, no connections to the publication world, no experience as a writer other than this little blog.  And I live in Michigan, a state in crisis where there are no job openings, let alone writing job openings to people with little experience.  Michigan doesn’t have authors coming here to offer writing workshops.  Hell, you have to travel out of state just to see your favorite writers on book tours.  Despite all of this, I have the passion and desire to write for a living, even when the odds are against me.  How can I make this happen?  It is one thing to search for writing jobs on the internet, or to buy books on how to submit query letters, but how the hell am I going to make my dreams come true?  I wish someone could email me the answer to that question.  Even better, can you grant me my wish and make my dream of becoming a writer come true? 

Books have always been my passion, my salvation, my inspiration, my chance to escape and my affordable and sometimes free education.  I want to do for others what so many other people have done for me.  Am I ever going to be a writer who gets paid for their work?  I can clearly remember laying in my grandma’s back yard, surrounded by fruit trees, rolling around in the grass, smelling and experiencing the earth, while reading books, and just dreaming about writing myself one day.  I’m still that dreamy girl, just  a little older. 

Now would be the perfect time for that miracle.  I need it so much …  My life has never been easy, nor have I ever expected it to be, either.  But not once have I ever been cut a major break, in any aspect of my life.  I need a miracle to happen to me and maybe there is someone out there who can make it happen.  I wish I was able to do it by myself, but I fear I can’t after so many years of trying.  I am looking for someone right now who can help me do what I have wanted to do ever since I was a little girl.  I don’t mean someone who will spam emailme an offer to buy their book on writing tips, either.  Spare me that.  I mean the real deal.  A genuine offer of help, without any money changing hands, just a soul who can help me just out of the goodness of their heart or out of appreciation of their enjoyment of the work I do here for free. 

 You had me at hello The Real housewives of New Jersey! 

I think that these ladies, pictured above, are the best group of Housewives that we have seen yet on Bravo.  First, let me tell you that I am not making that statement lightly; I adore my Orange County Housewives and my New York Housewives and have watched and loved them for awhile now.  But there is just something about a group of Jersey Girls that tugs at my heart.  By the way, BRAVO Bravo, you have become a network that is totally kicking ass with fantastic programing.  I love my Inside the Actors Studio, Kathy Griffin My Life on the D List, NYC Prep, look forward to the return of Project Runway, and enjoy catching shows from time to time such as The Millionaire Matchmaker, Flipping Out, Top Chef and Americas Next Top Model.  But, The Real Housewives of NJ, NY, and OC have stolen my heart.   

 

Look at Teresa here, going crazy and totally out of character, as she is about to flip over a table in anger after her castmate Danielle denies her shady past.  This is the super mom of the show with her college degree in fashion and huge Italian heart who just explodes after Danielle denies having been charged with numerous felonies, even after the housewives admit to seeing and reading a book that tells all about Danielle and her sorted past.

The housewives were having a meal together with their husbands and children, sort of a last supper, and Danielle decides to bring further attention to herself and the book on tv which in my opinion was crazy.  Danielle Staub, What the hell were you thinking?

After watching this episode and watching the Reunion show, and seeing the ladies minus Danielle on Regis and Kelly yesterday, I knew that I had to write about these people and their show.  OMG, it so crazy I can’t help myself.  The show was so good, in part, because of Caroline and Dina, two sisters married to two brothers.  Both of them hated Danielle from the start, and eventually Teresa was done with her, too, but now even Jacqueline, the sweet young mom of the show who is married to Caroline and Dina’s brother won’t even talk to Danielle.  Watch a bit of the housewives here.

Not only has Danielle been charged with numerous felonies – kidnapping, extortion, possession, delivering drugs, but her former 27 year old ex-boyfriend Steve Zalewski was trying to make money and put out a sex tape on the 46 year old Danielle.  Steve told Star Magazine that “Not only does she want to have sex all the time, but she loves the thrill of doing it in public places, where she might get caught.”  How gross and trampy.  Even better, Danielle confirms that the sex tape exists. 

According to the dozens of websites that I viewed today, I’ve learned that Danielle has quite the checkered past. Danielle was formerly known as Beverly Ann Merrill, but used the name Angela Minelli.  Back in the 80s, she was arrested with Daniel Aguilar, whom she met while working as an escort.  He then had her work for him as a courier.  Apparently Daniel Aguilar distributed coke for a Colombian drug family.  Danielle aka Angela was charged with multiple felonies after Danielle delivering coke to a kid and was then ripped off by masked gunmen.  Daniel, her partner in crime, then kidnapped the kid and tried to extort the money stolen from Danielle from the kidnapped kid’s dad.  Danielle rolled on Aguilar, and got off with probation on her extortion charge.   Just look at these fantastic Miami P.D. mug shots I found on her. 

 

I’m still not feeling good from my hysterectomy surgery.  I’m pretty much stuck in my bedroom, feeling mega crappy.  I’m not going to bore you all with the details, so instead let us have some fun and laughs, because I need to.

Today is my wedding anniversary.  A few years ago we eloped after being engaged a day.  It was fun and crazy and totally something I’d do, as I am not the traditional type of woman.  We did this during my midterm break from my last semester of college, and had our honeymoon about ten months later, which I wrote about here last year. 

http://thegirlfromtheghetto.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/my-honeymoon-last-year/

We celebrated last night by having a bowl of ice cream together, lol, and it was so good.  Since I just had surgery AND I am losing my job here in Michigan in the fall, I said no gifts, no cards.  Still, someones husband took back all the pop cans from the trunk of my car (That in itself was a gift alone, I hate returnables with a passion and let them pile up) and got me these roses, which were very appreciated.  I got a lovely card as well, and my momma send us some $ to go out to dinner in a few weeks, which was great, because I am going to miss eating steak dinners very very much.  It has been nice being middle class these past three years.    So much better than growing up ghetto.  Anyhoo, since I don’t have a gift for him, I thought that I could make him and all of you laugh with the funniest picture I own.

This is our pretend daughter, Imelda, who was created at the Detroit Science Museum in one of those photo booth things.  If you could see the rest of the picture with the two of us in it as well you’d really hoot.  It is hysterical.  But since hubby has a no photo rule, no dice people.  I have no idea why our child who will never be born nowis this ugly, lol, because hubby’s kids are movie star gorgeous.  But, somehow, this photo booth picked the worst looking child possible for us. 

I am watching An Officer and a Gentlemanright now on tv.  My god, how I love a man (really any man) in Navy whites.  One of my childhood BFF’s was in the Navy for years and I have a collection of pictures of me with many random Navy men, lol.  Thank you B.  Yes, I am crazy like that.  You should see me and my police officers photo collection as well.  It would take me an entire day to scan and edit all those photos, but maybe I’ll do it someday.  There really is something about a man in uniform that drives me wild.  Ah ladies, are you with me on this being one of the best movie lines ever:  Way to go, Paula! Way to go!   I can’t get enough of Mayo carrying Paula out of that crappy plant and all those Puget Debs clapping their hands and cheering because she caught her man.  I have actual chills as I think about it right now.  Hubby, perhaps my last day of work you can stop by, looking all cute and spiffy, lift my fat ass in the air off of my cubicle chair, and sweep me out of there ala Richard Gere in An a Officer and a Gentleman.  That movie was so my idea of romance back in the 1980s.  Who am I kidding?  It still is today.  Watch and learn fellas, watch and learn. 

 

Did you know John Travolta, Jeff Bridges and John Denver both turned down the lead role of this movie?  Thank god, right?  I loved Travolta in the day but I can’t see anyone else in this film but Richard Gere.  Brooke Shields and Kristy McNichol also turned down Debra Wingers part.  Whew!  I was on IMDB and read this about what the director told Debra Winger when she auditioned and laughed my butt off: “There may be somebody else for this part. I need somebody fuckable. You’re not fuckable enough.”  Please, Debra Winger has so much charm on screen it scares me.  I find her fantastic as an actress and beautiful by any eras standards.  Look at her here, when woman looked natural and real:

Remember her riding the bull in Urban Cowboy?  There is a reason why you see a picture of me riding the bull in my blog, just glance near the right side, mid way down under life is an adventure for a peak.  Because to me, being fabulous, free and normal looking is more beautiful than anything else.  I’m not the only writer who adores here.  Just read Augusten Burroughs blob (Not a typo) about her.  Just another reason why I adore him.

 http://www.augusten.com/site/debra-winger

Well, I’m off to lay down, feel dizzy, read my new Chelsea Handler book that my friend Writebrite sent to me and eventually dream about hot men in uniform.  Hope you all enjoyed this post and it put a little smile on your face.  Hubby, I love you, Happy Anniversary, and thanks for taking care of both me and our sick little guy this week.  Your plate has been full and I appreciate it.  I’m sorry I’m still so sick and that I can’t even shower for you today since we are on a boil water alert, lol.  I think open wounds and unclean water wouldn’t make me feel any better. 

I spent a horrifying amount of time watching Bravo yesterday, but was pleased by my find of a new show called NYC Prep.  Actually, the Big A told me about it in the hospital, so I went looking for it.  OMG.  I mean, OMG.  It is about a group of New York City upper east and upper west side high school prep students who basically act and live like adults.  Except they are in high school, don’t work, and have more money than anyone else ever featured on a reality tv show, except for maybe the Donald.  Right away, I knew I was was going to get hooked.  Most of the kids are ungodly rich, not very attractive (By Hollywood standards, calm down) and full of themselves, so I knew it was a good summer show to follow and write about.  Apparently, it is being compared to Gossip Girl, which is the same concept except this show is the real deal.  I smell big trouble for these kids come fall.  Can’t wait to hear the fallout of this show.  You can find out all about this show here:

http://www.bravotv.com/nyc-prep

Some of the cast have blogs on the Bravo website.  This is where you can spend a lot of time, so beware.  Kelli had the funniest quote: As far as what it would be like to live independently with my brother, I have to be honest- I don’t know, because that is not the situation I’m in despite how it may seem. Out of all of my friends, I feel like I have the strictest parents!  People, listen up, she lives in an apartment in NYC with her brother, and they are both teenagers.  Her parents live in the Hamptons.  Who in their right mind thinks it is smart or safe to let your children live alone in New York?  I don’t care if they have a doorman and credit cards.  Where is their supervision?  These kids go out to parties and dinner clubs more than I ever did in my twenties and thirties combined, and they are YOUNG and in HIGH SCHOOL.  Ahhhhhh …. 

That last paragraph should be enough to convince you to watch the show.  However, let me place the cherry on top of this dish of sweet gooey fluff:

There are two so called “hot” guys on the show, Sebastian and PC.  Both have annoying hair, not so much in the personality departments, and have no idea how to date the ladies.  But they think they do, and maybe to high school girls who know nothing they do.  It is hilarious to watch them act like seasoned dating professionals.  PC’s bio says this about him – For PC, money, women and life’s spoils are all he’s ever known, and as such, he can’t wait to get out of the “sandbox” of high school.  How trite.  Sebastian’s bio is even better- Sebastian is known among his circle of friends as the guy who constantly hooks up with the hottest girls – either in the City or at his place in the Hamptons.  As a native French speaker, girls swoon at his surfer good looks and impeccable accent.  I think he looks like Justin Timberlake when he does his Gibb brothers skit with Jimmy Fallon on SNL, but way worse.  And his hair is like Donald’s Trump, a total comb over that is so not hot. 

After hearing the news from my hospital bed that Michael Jackson, King of Pop had died, I instantly thought of three things.  One, his children may have a chance at a normal childhood; two, his music catalog would have to be sold and Paul McCartney finally may own his own music; and three, what did Michael Jackson’s life and music mean to me?   All of these things made me smile, and then I watched in horror as the media exploded with non stop coverage, old videos, even .  Again, a celebrity who has fallen from grace was given massive media coverage, overexposure and adoration in death.  Did any of you catch the 2009 BET Awards or the Larry King celebrity special with Cher on Michael Jackson last night?  Spare me.  The Michael Jackson who died last week was not the Michael Jackson I grew up with.  My Michael Jackson had the moves, tunes and those damn sparkly socks and glove that every kid either had or secretly desired.  I owned the socks myself and would wear them for my choir performances in middle school.  This is the man I am going to miss, not the alleged child molester and man with the every changing face.

Before knowing Michael from Thriller or from the fantastic Off The Wall, we met when he was a young boy singing with The Jackson Five, the black and better version of The Osmunds.  Growing up in Detroit and L.A., my mom had the best musical taste of any mother I will ever meet and I was lucky enough to share her love of music.  Not only did she introduce me to the best rock bands of all time, she introduced me to the Motown Sound and I was singing and dancing to everyone from Stevie Wonder to Marvin Gaye.  Some of my early performances came from my own versions of The Jackson Five songs.  God, how Michael could sing like an adult with soul.  I can still picture myself, in my mothers groovy clothes from the 60s and 70s, singing and dancing my little butt off in our living room while my mom and brother were watching and clapping along to my favorite J5 song I’ll Be There.   That is what I did, nonstop, until the big divorce in fifth grade when my step father took our record player and most of our albums.    I’m now sad thinking about how much I loved to sing for an audience and regret not joining choir in high school.  Karaoke did the trick for me for a few years, but I am an old woman now who has misplaced her singing voice and I am missing those living room concerts.   

By the time Michael came out with his single P.Y.T., my cousins were trying to teach me the dance moves.  I was never good with group choreography, since I was a solo act, so I shrugged it off and grew wary of Thriller.  I knew it was like the biggest album I had ever experienced in my young lifetime, so of course I grew a little disgusted with the Michael Jackson craze.  Back then I hated things that were popular, like any other girl who was a little alternative on the inside.  I’m not saying that I didn’t love Beat It or seeing Michael perform Billie Jean at the Motown 25  concert, I mean, my god, who else could dance and sing and do the moonwalk like him?  It was a fantastic performance, and one I got to see again on tv and online this weekend.  I clearly remember the day my friend, The Big A saw my first ever music pin, one of my then favorite band Van Halen.  She asked me, and I quote, why didn’t you get a Michael Jackson pin, he’s way better than themand I roared with laughter.  My mom bought me a Michael Jackson book and I kept laughing, because I couldn’t understand how EVERYONE in the world adored him.  But we all did, on some level I think.  I wouldn’t own several of his cds if it weren’t the case.

As an adult, I got to see my old musician friend fall from grace and become a joke of a man.  King of Pop no more.  He began turning white, lost his nose and he was unrecognizable and just flat out weird.  My husband said it best when he said that Michael Jackson died for him in 1993.  Of course, you all remember when Michael settled his child sexual abuse lawsuit and paid the family of a thirteen year old boy $22 million dollars.  That is a lot of money to make something go away.  You have to be thinking what I’m thinking.  Even though he also escaped prosecution for the same thing in 2005, I believe most people know that he did it and got away with it, just like other celebrities get off on criminal charges.  If there is one thing that makes me madder than anything it is hearing about any child getting abused or sexually assaulted.     

I know that Michael must have lived a hard life, always performing and living in the spotlight, and I believe that some weird sexual things happened to him as well, but I can’t forgive him and forget about the bad things he was accused of in his lifetime.  It is hard for me to see others people do the same and just praise him and ignore the bad stuff simply because he died.  While watching that tv movie (twice) yesterday about the Jackson’s where Washington from Welcome Back Kotter plays his father, I was terrorized all over again.  Who does that to a child?  Who forces them to play in bars late at night, go to school, and perform and practice and steal their childhood away from them?  I watched an interview where Michael said he was sometimes in the same hotel room as his brothers while they were having sex right in front of him.  Oh my god, that is just not right.  Still, Michael needs to be accountable for his actions, and I just can’t sit here and write a gushy post about a man that forced his kids to wear disguises in public or dangled his baby over a railing.  While he provided me many years of musical joy, and a win for best Halloween Costume in 2007 @ work, I am still sick to my stomach thinking there may be children out there that we don’t even know about who could have been victims of his alleged abuse. 

Shame on all of these people who chose to ignore the bad things Michael Jackson did.  Even in death, people need to tell it like it really is.  At least Cher kept it real and spoke how weird he had become.  I can appreciate the good things that Michael Jackson did just as well as the bad things he did or was accused of.  Do us all a favor and start doing the same!  No celebrity in death is a saint.  Not John Lennon, who ignored his first child, but made brilliant music and inspired millions of people, or Anna Nicole Smith, who died a skinny mother, who had watched her son die and left an infant behind.  Well, maybe Princess Dianna, who came close, but even she had her flaws.   We are all human, and never forget it.  None of us are perfect, and especially not Michael Jackson.

I’m tired, dizzy, sick to my stomach, and sweating like a pig.  Apparently, my Dysautonomia is flaring, or my pain medicines are making me sick.  I am having trouble sitting up, let alone standing or doing things like take a shower.  My in laws had to visit me today in my bedroom, and I hate to drag people in their seventies up a flight of stairs into the world’s hottest bedroom. 

I felt good the day after my surgery, I mean, better than I expected to feel.  But before the surgery, the nurse put a line in my arm and it fell out of the vein, and instantly freaked me out and swelled up and hurt like a bitch.  Then my surgery took longer, somehow my uterus was tucked way into my pelvis and was harder to remove.  Froze my bowls.  No strength to look up on line just what this means.  To you readers, all you need to know is that having severe gas pain and being forced to take softeners and having nurses stick things in my bum was no fun at all.  I drew the line at warm prune juice.  I can only be humiliated so much.  But back to the surgery: My ovarian cyst had ruptured and was gone by my surgery, so my doctor was sure that I didn’t have PSOS, and I got to keep the ovaries and not go into menopause.  So there is that to be happy about.  I was on oxygen for about fifteen hours, which is weird.  Who knows why?  All I know is that I feel like crap and hope it will get better soon.  I can handle surgical pain, but not the dizziness, sweating, and that sick to my tummy feeling.  My gas pain comes and goes.  I’ve stopped most of my meds trying to find what makes me the least sick or what helps the most. I have determined that my actual pain meds are doing it, and since they don’t let you leave with liquid morphine, the only pain medication that makes me feel good, I’m screwed and have to take them.   Twice in the hospital I had the spins so bad (And chest pain I didn’t mention, because I was going home Friday no matter what) that they gave me several medicine which didn’t work.  Sigh.  I knew this was going to happen.  As you can see here even my hair is a disaster. 

I’ve spent hours laying in bed, being forced to watch every moment of Michael Jackson’s life.  I have to write about it, and will soon.  Just not today.  Still thinking about what I’ve seen and experienced with him through the years.  Just expect it soon.

My friends and family have been so nice to me.  Hubby is working around the clock as my nurse, and blending me up my favorite fruit smoothie shakes from Costco.  Sadly he is working double duty today, as our little one is sick with a fever, again, so I am trying to lay low and not demand too much.  The In laws just brought me flowers, which I loved.  They were trying to bring more food, but I begged them not too, as we have a ton of stuff.  The Big A made me and my family several meals, and I am dying at how good her mac n cheese is.  Some of the girls from work sent me a group card or sent their own card, and another even brought me flowers and a tabloid to the hospital.  My friend’s fiancee is sending me a book.  More friends called or just responded to my endless texts from my hospital bed, which I always appreciate.  I get bored just laying around.  I am so happy to have people be nice to me, you have no idea what this is doing for me.  

Sometime tonight my real life friend The Big Awill be posting a comment here to let you all know how my surgery went.   Like a dumb ass, I wrote down 20 instead of 2:00 hours for the surgery.  Imagine my surprise when I asked how long and the nurse told me as long as two and a half hours for the procedure.  Whoops! 

So, yesterday afternoon my stepdaughter called me and wanted to know why I was having this surgery again.  Since I have so many health problems, none of us can keep it straight.  I’ll forget to tell my doctors what diseases I have all the time, so this was no biggie that she had to ask this.  After giving her the run down, I thought maybe I should tell all of you, just in case you weren’t sure why I was having this done, and why it is such a big deal.  So, here goes:

• Fibroids – 2. 
• Polyps – To quote my doctor in 2005 “I’m chock full of them.”
• Twenty four years of heavy bleeding – 10 days periods every 21 days. 
• Three failed D & C’s and a failed endometrial ablation.  My periods have come back, now up to four days every two or three weeks.
• Ovarian cysts.  I get them all the time.  Painful and right now I have one that is bigger than my actual left ovary.
• Septate Uterus.  Yep, my uterus has split in half.  Soon to rupture.
• I’ve been peeing out tissue from uterus for the past two years.  They are sure it is not from my bladder.  
•  Adenomyosis, a severe form of Endometriosis, where the genes have gotten mixed up, and the Endometriosis is inside the muscle of the uterus and scarring occurs from the inside to the outside of the organ.  It also makes the entire uterus grow huge.  My endometrium has actually grown back, and she thinks it is also in the, um, lower area, causing severe pain you know when. 
• Tilted uterus.  As if I needed one more thing.  If you look at me closely, you can see how the left side of me sticks out more than the right.  Hubby wants me to ask for it back in a glass jar, lol.  I’ve seen pictures of it, and damn, it is scary looking, all scarred up like a man whose been in battle or something.

The only choice you have when you have Adenomyosis is to yank it out.  No other options.  I’m now having the big tummy cut, so that I can be under less time.  And now I’m keeping my cervix.  I may have to get rid of the ovaries as well because of the cysts.  I do not want to go into menopause at my age, so let us pray she only has to yank one.

Not only is this major surgery, but I have the following concerns:

• Dysautonomia.  My heart rate and blood pressure are not regulated.  It it not good for you to have surgery as a rule.  Last couple of times I woke up from 30 minute procedures gasping for air with a heart rate of 42 and a nurse yelling for me to breathe.  Kind of scary stuff.  The damn doctor didn’t want to put me under and he and his nurses and my gyno and her nurses were duking it out in the hallway.  I gave her a look that said “just do it” and thankfully she won.  I told her no repeats today, that crap stressed me out last October. 
•  Bleeding disorder.  When I was at Mayo they found out that I had an abnormal blood Venus Venom test result – a bleeding disorder, which I can agree with.  When I cut my leg open a few years ago I bleed and bleed for about 40 minutes from a tiny cut.  I have had an ER man nurse who was also a medic in the Army ask me if I had this, since when he took my blood I just gushed the blood all over and had instant, severe bruising.  I’m worried if something goes wrong in surgery than what will this do to complicate it.
• Genetic  issues.  Mayo also thinks I have a rare genetic condition involving a loss of collagen.  It is so rare they don’t even test for it, only two other places in the US do.  So far I’ve lost two inches of height, my heart has mild regurgitation in two valves, hearing loss, my retina is torn in a bunch of places (lattice degeneration), I have the whole split uterus thing, and a million other little things because of this.  I’m extremely worried that something is going to go wrong during the surgery because of my weak tissues and muscles.  I’m really hoping I’m going to be ok.   

Even while writing this, I’m pretty calm.  I wasn’t able to sleep much last night, but that had more to do with the fact that it was in the 90s upstairs and I was sweating to death.  Stupid heat rising.  We have central air, but you’d never know it in my bedroom.  Summers here are brutal, and now that I have my new fan Beatrice is scared of it and won’t come sleep or visit me at night.

I guess I purged all of this just in case there was bad news and I wanted to prepare you in case something happens.  I’m thinking that I will just be sick and puke from going under, as in the past, and that I’ll be ok.  However, I know too many people who have had bad things happen in hospitals from “simple surgeries” so I wanted you all to be prepared, because I am dramatic and crazy like that.

I have no idea how long I’m going to be offline.  I’m staying in the hospital until Thursday, and hopefully by this weekend I will have time to post or at least read comments.  I appreciate all the good thoughts, prayers and kind words you all have been telling me for months now.  Thank you so much for allowing me to vent on here and for reading what I have to say.

My god, I had to watch Jon & Kate Plus 8tonight and come out of my semi-retirement and talk some SMACK TALK about KON.  Well, I listened to it, as I was online rather than watching the bullshit with the little houses.  But I watched to see the emotionless face of Kate Gosselin as she refused to even cry when discussing her future divorce from the man she vowed to just last summer to always be with.  I’m just horrified to hear that she only cried a half day, and woke up and was fine with it; she won’t be without her kids on holidays, meaning, Jon she won’t share them with Jon like any other normal divorced couple; and the worst of all, the damn show is still going to continue while they are legally separated.  Imagine my horror when I heard the following quote by that bad haired, controlling freak of a woman “the show must go on.“  Honey, you’ve lost your husband, and you are still concerned about the show and the almighty dollars you make from it?  SHAME ON YOU.  When will people learn to stop going on reality tv shows?  Because this is just another pathetic example how fame changes and destroys people.  Why do any of you fools want to meet her, let alone buy her books on how to have a happy family?  She wasn’t happy with Jon, and we all know Jon wasn’t happy with her bossing him around all the time, either.  He wouldn’t be publicaly running around with young girls and skipping Kate’s birthday unless he was done with Kate.  Who is even still watching this fake ass stupid fucking show about two people who don’t love and possibly hate each other and are forced to continue filming a tv show together in order to avoid working real jobs so that they can “provide” for their children?  Gosselins, all you have provided for them is the end of their family.  No amount of money in the world will ever replace daddy or mommy being with them every day. 

By the way, are all you KON fans and freaks who have blindly supported this sham of a marriage at home right now sobbing because what I’ve been speculating and writing about for months has finally come true?  People, even the producer slipped and mentioned Jon’s own house, just like we read about in the tabloids.  Jon mentioned that they haven’t been together for seven or eight months, meaning before the holidays last year.  Hello!!!  I’m laughing, because within minutes of this show beginning, one of my loyal readers pointed out to me that I was just a couple months off with the below post when I predicted their divorce filing date of November 21, 2009.  I will only say this to the crazy KON supporters and be done with it “Ha ha, I was so right, and you all are idiots for believing that this marriage was real and for ignoring what the tabloids had to say about it.  The tabloids were right, so suck it.”   

http://thegirlfromtheghetto.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/when-will-jon-gosselin-divorce-kate-gosselin/

For more entertainment, watch their renewal of vows in Hawaii that aired during a month that they weren’t even together.  You can see how miserable they were last August when this was filmed.  I’ve been talking about them long before the news shows and talk shows were.

http://thegirlfromtheghetto.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/jon-kate-plus-8-miserable-hawaiian-wedding-on-tlc/

I never blog about weight because I don’t like to remind myself, let alone my family and friends who read this blog, of the fact that I’ve gained a scary amount of weight in a very short time.  Three years ago I put on a lot of weight.  It went on like 30 pounds at a time.  I kept telling my doctors that there was NO WAY that I was eating that much food, because I was still walking my normal four miles per day, five to seven days per week, plus I worked out at my gym during the first year of the gain.  I know my body, and I knew something wasn’t right, but no one was doing anything about it.  Sigh. 

I’ve had three major weight gains in my lifetime due to Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, an autoimmunedisease that messes with your glands, hormones, and endocrine system.  Back in the old days, they confused it with Bipolar Disorder.  Pretty damn scary, right?  It can also give you a puffy face, bleeding problems, pale skin, cold sensitivity, hair loss, joint pain and stiffness, swelling, dry skin, hair and nails, high cholesterol, and even cause heart failure.  I also have a darn goiter (You wouldn’t really notice it unless you are a medical person) with a mass in it.  Thankfully it is small enough they don’t have to biopsy it yet, which involves a needle poke to the throat repeatedly, while your head hangs off the back of the table.  By the time my Cardiologist got me into a Endocrinologist, my thyroid had completely burned out, and now I have to take a hormone replacement pill for the rest of my life.  I’ve been on it for about four months, and it has thankfully helped me with my exhaustion.  I also have Fibromyalgia, and now I have enough energy to get out of bed on the weekends and do little things.  I’m not able to do a whole day out yet, but I’m hoping I can get back to that place, someday.  I miss being social and fun! 

This last gain has been impossible to get rid of, because I also have massive stress, due to health issues, life, Michigan’s economy, and my work.  For instance, my boss tried to lay me off the day of, and then the day before my scheduled hysterectomy, only to warned by someone that was illegal to do that to me, someone who is on the FMLA, so I get to keep my job until the fall.  In addition to my stress, I have Dysautonomia, and my blood pressure and heart rate are both very low.  If I try to exercise, stand or sit down, I feel faint and dizzy almost every time I move.  Many doctors here in Michigan missed it, and I had to go to Mayo Clinic to get it all sorted out.  I’ve been able to push myself to walk two miles about four days per week.  Obviously, that is not enough exercise and I can’t lose the weight.  If I exercise, I have to faint.  If I don’t move, my heart gets weaker.  And, my doctors at Mayo told me I HAVE TO get moving, lose weight, or it is only going to get worse for me.  So I suffer through it and walk at least two miles a day. 

Having been a former super skinny, tall (5′10″) blond who weighed 118 pounds during high school and part of my freshman year of college, I can say that ending up fat just sucks.  My mom and brother both have thyroid issues and were heavy off and on all their entire lives.  I saw how people treated them, made fun of them, as well as a few of my friends who were chubby in grade school, middle school and high school.  I never liked seeing anyone get teased about being chubby or fat, it seemed dumb and cruel.  At least I was lucky and my body stayed skinny (Well, I gained the freshman 15, and the sophomore ten, but I was still 140-ish at 5′10″ wearing a size seven in juniors)  until I turned 25.  I was only briefly chubby and by 26 I was slim again, then chubby again by age 28.  By 30 I turned fat, to go slim by age 33 and stayed that way until I was almost 36.   

Wanna know what it is like being fat?  My love of shopping has died, because the clothes are so ugly, matronly, expensive, and ill fitting.  If you go out into the world, you encounter people, usually dumb guys and men who are bald or chubby themselves, blatently judging you and letting you know that you aren’t worthy of a hello, because you are overweight.  I’ve worked in bars many years and have seen either my friends or my customers who couldn’t handle walking in sober just for fear of being called a fat name.  I can totally tell when someone is judging either me or someone else because of weight, and I don’t appreciate it at all.  People also stop complimenting your looks.  I’ve been lucky enough not to also have an ugly face, yet, god forbid a fat hater tell you you look good when you actually do look good.  It knocks your self confidence down.  Thankfully, I don’t let it get to me a lot, just sometimes, but more than anything I hate posing for pictures, because all it does is remind me of what I can’t do, which is lose weight like a normal person.  One of my doctors hated me being fat, as she is just one of those people who doesn’t approve of any overweight people.  She’d argue with me to lose weight, and even though I was still exercising and trying to cut back on my eating, it was never good enough for her because nothing was changing on the scale.  Who needs to get yelled at by a doctor you pay to help you?  All I needed was a darn pill, and it was denied to me for four years simply because two Indian doctors were under the assumption that I was just lazy and had bad eating habits and they refused to LISTEN to what I was saying. 

Why do people hate fat people?  I honesty believe that this is one of the last acceptable forms of discrimination.  Think about it:  Fat people often don’t get the job offers over the skinny people.  They don’t attract men as much as a skinny.  They pay more for the clothes, and even then clothing isn’t styled as cutely as the skinnier outfits.  The get picked on at work, at home, in public.  God forbid you try and eat a big meal out in public.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve witnessed an overweight person get called a fat name.  There are jobs where you will not be hired simply because of your weight.  Others where you are charged more for health insurance.  I see waitress and bartending ads all the time that say you have to be stylish and fit  or weight has to be in proportion to your height to even apply.  Some people think fat chicks and fat guys are downright lazy.  

Come on, so many people are overweight in America, the average clothing size for a woman is a size 14.  Why do we keep picking on the fat?  Instead of forcing Hollywood stars to basically become anorexic and bulimic, why can’t we appreciate our normal sized stars and quit talking about their weight or circling the fat spots on their bodies in the tabloids?  Shoot, every one of those so-called curvy stars has lost weight.  My girl Kate Winslet, who is a fabulous actress, is now so skinny I am freaked out.  I wish everyone would realize that not everyone who is heavy is so because of their own actions or just over-eating.  Chubby kids don’t buy their own groceries.  Many people eat poorly and don’t exercise, and they aren’t judged for it.  There are plenty of people, like me, who are overweight because of their health.  

A month ago my new medical doctor put me on an ADHD medicine, to help with my mental confusion, organization, and most importantly, to raise my blood pressure.  Even though I have to drink water constantly, which is good, because with Dysautonomia you need to, this medicine has also helped me shed eighteen pounds in ONE MONTH.  Praise the lord.  This was without any additional exercise.  Just think of what I could lose if I could handle exercising more?  And, it was just in time, as I’m having my hysterectomy next week and EVERYONE loves to tell me how you gain weight afterwards due to hormone imbalances.  I’ve seen pictures of people before and after surgery, and it scares me. 

I adore food, I have a love affair with it, it is all I think about.  Probably because I never got fed at home, and my mom would even hide food and eat it with my brother in front of me, tempting me and teasing me with it.  It obviously screwed up my brain, and I try to stop what I like to refer to as THE BEAST.  Some of my best friends are all about food and so is my skinny husband, damn him.  Seriously, I have food demons sitting on my shoulders, telling me to eat eat eat all the time.  I struggle with eating every day of my life.  Being an Italian, I honestly believe that I was born into an obsession with food, made worse by my crazy ass mother who denied me food. Hubby loves food, too, so it is hard for me to see him enjoy himself and not get fat.  When I first met him I was slim, a juniors size nine, and I wasn’t even eating chocolate with him for the first six months of dating.  At one point I asked him who he wanted, skinny hungry girlfriend or big fat girlfriend who would eat dinner with him.  He picked big fat girlfriend, and sadly, he got a little more than what he expected.  Sorry honey, but thank you for never mentioning my weight gain.   

Weight loss has to be a way of life, never a diet for the overweight and I know that many of you already know this and struggle with it like I do.  Tell yourself that it is down to life and death because you KNOW that being lighter will help you in the long run.  Plus you will feel better!  This is what I have done, and I am in my zone, trying to be unstoppable.  I’ve had the worst ten days possibly in my entire life and I didn’t hit a candy bar, bag of chips or fast food place once.  That is a miracle.  For the past few months I’ve also had to quit things like caffeine and pop for my stomach troubles, and now sweets for weight loss. Even my dear love of red sauces and tomatoes have to be in moderation. I never thought I’d see the day switching sour dough english muffins to whole wheat.  Sorry to go on and on, but this is how hard life is for so many people. Why make them feel worse for something that they have to deal with for the rest of their lives?

Here is a collection of photos of me through the years, so you can see what I went through.  I didn’t have the strength to find pictures from every year, so this collection is as good as it gets.  All this scanning took me hours. 

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1995

1996

2000

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Here is a picture I just took today with my flat hair, sweated off make-up.  Keep in mind my work and home both have air conditioning issues.  Still, you can see the difference.

Somehow, an actual miracle has happened to me today, and I am still in shock.  Like an honest to god sort of Jesus Christ type of miracle.  I don’t experience days like this too often in my life, and at least for today, I am happy and feel truly happy in my heart.  Let me explain:

The Ugly - My boss, rather unfairly and possibly illegally (according to those in the business) chose me to get the axe at work last week.  I’m the girl in the office who has two job titles, who works harder than most people (Well, the hardest, but then it will sound like I’m just bragging, when I’m only being truthful) and who has more seniority than many others who were saved.  Not only was it handled without compassion, but he did it to coincide with the day of my scheduled surgery; only to have him move it up a day, which makes me think he wanted to hurt me so that I wouldn’t get to take a paid medical leave or be allowed to qualify for unemployment while I was recovering for six weeks.  And, oh yeah, my insurance would run out a few days after.  Plus my hubby’s insurance, which sucks compared to mine, doesn’t even cover gynecological visits.   

I’ve heard my doctor call him a swear word, had another doctor ask me what this man’s personal vendetta is against me, and have even heard from the least compassionate co-worker there tell me that this was bullshit.  If  THAT person thought this, then you know it was wrong.  I have been a train wreck since last week, not only because I am scared to have this surgery, scared of the complications I could have due to my medical history, but I’ve also never had a baby and I’m having that whole thing with feeling sorry for myself for never being able to have my husband’s baby.  To have to worry about losing a job in a state with 14.1 % unemployment, worry about the medical costs of a surgery that possibly wasn’t going to be fully covered if I had to stay in the hospital for an extended time, or to have to worry about not collecting unemployment OR disability for weeks (Or months, if they denied it, like what happened to my friend’s mom, FOR TWO YEARS, as she had a similar thing happen to here.) has been HORRIBLE.  I’ve had a lot of stress in my life, but this I felt was going to give me the big one.  Yesterday I think I was in shock from the stress because I felt weird and was sweating and cold all at once and I was hysterically crying and driving and somehow today it all just disappeared.

The Good – Yesterday my boss called me into his office (Very cleverly, I had a friend stand outside his door) and I left the door open so she could hear what he was saying.  Because I knew it was weird.  He was all nice, offering me letters of recommendations, promised to let me know if he heard of any job openings anywhere, and asked me how I was feeling.  Um, what?  I was confused, to say the least.  The man has never been nice to me, and I could see how it hurt him to be fake like this.  He hates me, and no one, not even me, knows why.  Even my own supervisor says I’m sorry if I mention his dislike for me.  It is that obvious.  When he told me that I lost my job all he said was “it wasn’t based on seniority” and left it at that.  Then he blamed the decision on picking me to get cut, rather than others who were more deserving, on a person who is not his boss, and who legally wouldn’t make decisions like this in our office.  This person is someone who is above his station, but not the boss, if you understand what I mean.  (I don’t say what I do/where I work for obvious reasons.  I’ve barely ever even blogged about work, unless it was an emergency, like today, or last week.  Where I work or what I do for a living doesn’t matter, except for a day like today.) 

This morning, he pulls me in again, and no one is around to listen outside the door again, so I’m bracing myself for the worst.  When I heard the words “I have never had to delete a position before, and I didn’t know that I couldn’t do it“ … I was in shock.  There was more, but I have to edit it for privacy reasons.  Basically, he tells me that my last day is now in three months, that I can take my medical leave, and that I can even take more time off due to my FMLA if I want, so I can take my paid medical leave and keep my insurance through the whole thing.  No big deal that he about killed me last week with stress.  He just made a mistake.

I know that somewhere, somehow, someone must have told him what the fuck, and busted him, and told him to stop putting me through this, even if it is just temporary.  Not only have I changed the type of surgery I’m having, as I can have the safer and quicker method now, but I have also been allowed to move up the date to early next week.  (I have an ovarian cyst that is larger than my actual ovary, it is painful as hell, and I’m bleeding a lot, so that is why the surgery got bumped up.)  While I am thrilled that I get to keep my insurance, and stop worrying about bills while I’m recovering, I still am going to lose my job.  Life is never fair, but today, at least for a few hours, it was, and I am so thankful to whoever it was that basically saved my soul today.  Thank you kind stranger or known friend who hasn’t come forward yet.  I AM SO HAPPY THAT YOU WERE LOOKING OUT FOR ME!

I came home to a wonderful gift from Maureen, a fellow blogger who I met because of one of my favorite writers.  We met in person a few months ago, and I just adore her.  She is one of those rare, genuine people you meet in your lifetime.  She blogs, but she also really writes, and her stuff is good and someday soon I know she will get a book deal.  You can check her out here.  She sent me a box full of stuff to help me start writing my book again.  (Yes, I haven’t started yet, like an ass.)  Magazines, novels, even websites, and she is sharing every trick and secret she knows about getting published.  It was fabulous to come home happy, and then to see this kindness waiting in a box for me!

There was more in my mail today when I arrived home - Literature and notes from one of my doctors.  I had to cancel a bunch of appointments because of losing my job, as hubby’s insurance gives me around a $70 co-pay for each specialist.  When you have ten doctors, and not-fantastic insurance, you have to make that choice between who to keep and who to let go.  I asked the office to ask him if he understood my situation, and if he could send me any info in the mail to help treat me.  He did, and he basically is giving me free medical care by mail.  Now, here is the kicker – he was a new doctor, and I’ve only seen him once.  How cool is that? 

I could tell you even better stuff about another doctor of mine, but you never know who is reading, so trust me, the stuff my other doctor did even tops this!  And my god, don’t even get my started on my surgeon.  I adore her for all that she and her office has done for me over the past few weeks.  Her assistant has spent a total of 100 minutes of time just talking to me and trying to help.  What other office does that for a patient. 

The Bad -I got squeezed into my dentist this week.  I knew with the news from Mayo Clinic about my genetic disorder, and weakening of tissues and the whole Sicca Complex thing it wasn’t going to be just a cleaning.  (I have dry eyes, skin and mouth.  Like an autoimmune condition called Sjogren’s Syndrome, but not.  Hard to explain.)  I have to use artificial tears and saliva all day long.  Weird, right?)  My dentist told me eighteen months ago that I was going to need oral surgery, because I have an extra set of wisdom teeth, they are so far back that he can’t even fill them if I get a cavity.  Quick dental recap.  My dentist now is the first and only dentist I have ever seen.  Never had dental care until I was 31.  I have a perfect set of straight teeth, as I brush and floss daily and have done so almost my entire life.    I had five cavities when I met him, and they were small cavities at that.  In the past six years, I’ve gotten three more, and then Tuesday he told me about the two new cavities.  When you have Sicca Complex, your mouth is so dry, the lack of saliva causes cavities, and worse, can cause them to decay, crack, or fall out.  I am paranoid and a freak about three things and I pray to god none of them every happens to me: I am terrified about being found dead (and naked) by someone who knows me; paranoid about losing a body part, like a finger or a foot; and I’m terrified to ever have a tooth missing from my mouth.  Now, I know those fears sound weird, but hey, I’m weird, and if I’m admitting my weirdness on my website, so what, get over it.  I had to hold up my finger and tell him “I’m having a hysterectomy, and I am getting laid off the day before the surgery.  Whatever you have to tell me has to wait six months.  I can’t handle it.  So, unless I’m dying or something needs emergency fixing, do not tell me.”  So he didn’t, and for now I am breathing a sigh of relief.  Sadly, I had to buy a certain kind of tooth paste, alcohol free fluoride treatment, and a special tooth brush.  $37 for two of everything.  Even though I need to save, my teeth can’t fall out.  I can suffer through anything else, but when it comes to my mouth … oh hell no.

So, Tuesday is the big day.  I’m going to the show.  (Ok, the hospital, but I was drifting off and thinking of Bull Durham and Kevin Costner back in his heyday.)  Losing two organs, and hopefully not the third.   I really don’t want to go into menopause at my age.  I may not post until after the surgery.  I haven’t slept in weeks.  I’ve just been freaking out in my bed, or watching reruns all night long.  I need to catch up on sleep as I can’t sleep in public and hospital rooms are the worst for me.  If I don’t post until next weekend or later, if things go badly, you will know why.  Hopefully one of my friends will update on my status in the comments.  The Big A, you up for that? 

Again, thanks to everyone who has emailed me or left me very nice comments over the past week.  Little Miss, I love you for all of your advice and listening to me last week.  As soon as I can I promise to visit all of you on your blogs.  I hope everyone else is doing ok.  I’m so behind on my blog reading it is shameful.  Even worse, I’m behind on reading books and have just purchased myself a “thank god you didn’t lose your health insurance or disability pay and your job is safe for three more months” book – The Girls from Ames.  Memoir of eleven childhood friends taking them into forty years of friendship.  Right up my alley.  I hope it is fabulous, as it is coming to the hospital along with Pygmy.

I grew up in an area that has some of the nation’s highest cancer rates.  Seriously, how scary is that?  For forteen years I lived about a mile away from a nasty garbage incinerator, which operated from1955 until 1988, and of course it was adjacent to an elementary school.  For over thirty years the citizens complained of respitory problems, smoke, odors, falling ash.  Eventually, someone got smart and tested the adjacent elementary school which of course had toxic levels of lead.  My city has higher cancer rates than any other city surrounding it, except for Detoit.  I’ve been wondering for the past few months if this is why I’ve been sick.  I’ve also heard a rumor that our entire city was a swamp

I’m 38 years old, and I know too many people from my little ghetto who have either cancer or rare or uncommon diseases, such as my friend K. who has Transverse Myelitis, and she is paralysed from the chest down.  One minute she was playing golf, and within two hours she went from tingling to absense of feeling over 2/3 of her body.  She also keeps getting more illnesses and I can’t imagine her stress.  My city had around 32,000 people.  I graduated with a class of about 200.  I know so many people who have either survived cancer, died, or had lost their parent(s) at a young age.  Many more have reproductive health issues, kidney, immune function, kidney disease, and nervous system diseases.  For instance, I myself have reproductive health issues – Polyps, Fibroids, Septate Uterus, Adenomyosis, Ovarian Cysts, pain, and I’ve been shedding uterine tissue for over two years.  I’m getting a hysterectomy in less than two weeks.  I also have chronic kidney pain and I won’t go see that doctor, because I already see ten others doctors and I’m tired of getting poked and proded.  I have two autoimmune skins diseases, and a thyroid autoimmunine disease – Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.  And let’s not forget my nervous system disease, Dysautonomia.  Hmmm, isn’t that interesting?  Especially since lead exerts toxic effects on the nervous system, kidney, immune function, and reproduction. 

In Michigan, our fertility rate per 1,000 women aged 15-44 years is 61.7, lower than the national average.  Even more interesting, our death rate is 852.3 per 100,000 population, while the national average is much more lower at 776.4.  Can anyone guess why we Michiganders have less success with pregnancy and die faster than the rest of the nation?

I’ve mentioned my theory to a friend of mine who went to my rival high school in our city.  He knew many our age with the same type of problems and diseases as my former classmates.  When I was last in the emergency room, my cardiac technologist and I got to talking.  She is about three years older than I am, and she also grew up in my city, and went to the private high school.  She knew plenty of people from her school with health issues.  The common denominater for all three schools was reproductive cancers and issues.  I’ve been told that at one time nine of the elementary school teachers had uterine cancer.  Why isn’t anyone else writing about the problems of my former city?  I’ve been telling friends who didn’t grow up there who work in the medical field and they are shocked by how many ill or dead people I know or know of.

I’m no Erin Brockovich and I’m certainly not writing about PG & E, but I have been toying with the idea of writing this post about my possible toxic town for quite a long time. I knew I had to write it after seeing this picture from a recent high school reunion (Which I did not attend) of a table set up honoring all of our deceased former classmates.  The picture is blurry on purpose.  Tell me, just how scary is this table?  How many of you my age know really sick or dead people, or survivors of cancer?

 

Below are a few websites that I visited to do my research.  I have more websites that deal with lawsuits, city minutes, local newspapers, etc., but I’ve chosen not to share them.  I’d love to be able to tell which city I’m talking about, but I like my semi-privacy, so I’m purposly not listing the name.  I’d also like to ask all of you commenters who know what city I’m talking about to please NOT MENTION THE NAME OF THE CITY here in the comments.  If you are a concerned citizen who has some insight, dirt, or questions, then email me.  If you are a local official, government or the actual owner of said garbage incinerator and you’ve figured out which city I’m talking about, please remember that YOU might have contributed to making ME and my friends sick in the first place, and we all have the right to question and discuss if this could be the possible cause of all of our various medical issues.  

http://www.mdch.state.mi.us/pha/osr/Cancer/Race/Oakland_Num.asp

http://www.scorecard.org/env-releases/search-by-zip-code.tcl?zip_code=48071&fips_county_code=26125

http://www.karmanos.org/epid/Cancer%20Statistics%20in%20Metropolitan%20Detroit%202008.pdf

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/popup_mi.htm

http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=22028

http://www.statecancerprofiles.cancer.gov/incidencerates/index.php?stateFIPS=26&cancer=001&race=00&sex=0&age=001&type=incd&sortVariableName=rate&sortOrder=default

http://www.statehealthfacts.org/profileind.jsp?cat=2&sub=17&rgn=24

http://americanhealthstudies.org/index.html

http://vlex.com/libraries/case-law-14