just an ordinary goddess…

My Twitter feed has been mostly filled with all things Station Fire, mainly because it’s not far from where I live and even closer to where I work. JPL was initially threatened, but seems to be safe for the moment. After closing the lab yesterday due to poor air quality, it was reopened today, though it’s still looking pretty damned orangey-tan out there. Thank heavens for air conditioning and air filtration systems – makes being inside totally bearable.

However, though I can seem to think of nothing else, I’ve got to divert my mind from the conflagration behind me. And how better to do that than to display some lovely loot?

Once again I opened my front door on a Friday off and found a package at my feet. This time the package was from the ever fabulous Janiece. Sometime ago I won a contest on her site and my prize was a hand knit hat. Having seen Janiece knit in person, I knew it would be special. And it is! Even more special — she made a matching scarf! And both of them match my bedding pretty closely!

Scarf detail

Hat detail

Wigstand (aka old thermos) modeling the lovely hat and scarf

Me modeling hat and scarf for CuteFilmNerd

Ooh, makes my hazel eyes browner!

Thank you, Janiece! You dost rawk mucheth!

…my heart, I mean.

Yesterday I went and had myself an echocardiogram. Not because anything new had developed, but just as a “Gotta Make Sure” measure. It lasted about half an hour and was pretty easy on my end, since all I had to do was lie on my left side, try not to shiver as the doctor smeared cold clear gel around my left breast and try to relax while the doctor kept pushing the echo transducer into my chest, following the trail of the now-skin-temperature gel. A few times it seemed she pushed the transducer so hard that I’d have bruising, but so far no bruising has developed.

It was actually pretty cool, trying to watch my heart beat on the monitor, seeing my valves open and close regularly and the blood rushing through. I’ve always been fascinated with what doctors and dentists do to my own body. When at the dentist, I like to keep my glasses on, if possible, and watch the action in the metal center of the light, which turns into a mirror if the light is reflected just right (which it usually is). Chances are if I ever had a triple bypass, I’d try to find a way to watch that. This despite the fact that I can be very squeamish and can’t watch anything graphic in movies or documentaries. I could never watch medical documentaries or even the graphic scenes on Nip/Tuck. Hell, I still haven’t seen the steak crawling scene from Poltergeist, even though I’ve seen that movie more times than I can count.

Anywho, good news: she said that everything looked okay to her, but it would be a couple of weeks before the full results would be known. Unless, of course, they saw something immediately that was concerning, in which case I’d get a call from my doctor. But I’m betting that nothing unusual will be found. Which is good, because it’s obvious that having a heart problem would really suck. But there is still a part of me that thinks, “Aha! If they find something physically wrong, then I’ll be vindicated.”

Yeah, I know.

However, it looks increasingly as if the diagnosis is a newly sprouted anxiety disorder. Whee! I’ve been coming to this conclusion as well, especially considering that recently I have felt anxious in situations that have not phased me in the past. Driving, for instance.

Since I don’t have a car, I don’t drive often. I have, however, rented cars in the past when needed and had no problems. Aside from the usual, “All drivers that aren’t me are idiots,” sort of frustration that pretty much every driver in L.A. feels, that is. But on the weekends of 1/13 and 1/20, when I’ve rented cars because I’ve been exceptionally busy, at least a few times while driving I felt some of the symptoms from November and December come back. Nothing bad, and not enough to distract me from my driving (though they did make the drives interminably long), but they were there nonetheless. And this time I really did feel as if it were anxiety that made an appearance, instead of my heart and head deciding to conspire against me.

So guess what I’ll be picking up tonight? Ativan. Oh fucking whee.

I don’t like pills. I take ibuprofen when needed, which is more than I’d like due to my bad neck, but I take the smallest dose I can get away with. I take vitamins when I remember to do so. But that part of me that thinks I should be able to “power through” my anxiety is highly annoyed that I have to resort to taking medication for it.

Don’t get me wrong. I have a number of friends who are taking or have taken medication for anxiety or panic disorders. I fully understand why they’re on such medication and am happy that it helps them out. I’ve seen great improvements in the quality of their lives.

But I still have remnants from my past that tell me I’m the strong one, I can take it, I don’t have to resort to chemical assistance to make my life better. It’s unreasonable, I know that. But there it is.

However, if this medication is going to help me, is going to keep me from experiencing such overwhelming anxiety that I swear I’m having a heart attack or that I’m going to faint while sitting at my desk at work, well, then I’ll take it according to the doctor’s orders, but make sure that I don’t become addicted to it. It’s going to be the lowest dose available, so I think I should be okay on that front.

Hey guys, I’m joining the Benzos club. G-d, I hope there’s no initiation…

I’m a sucker for a good meme, but sometimes you just have to say, “Fuck memes.” Unapologetically stolen from Karl Elvis, who yanked it from Shoeless:

Reply to this post, and I’ll tell you one or two (maybe even three) reasons why I hate you.

Then put this in your own journal, and spread the hate.

I love all of you so much that I hate you for making me love you.

(Except you, HSTeacher. I love loving you. Especially tonight… *growl*)

Sorry I’ve been gone two weeks. I’ve been in a whirl of busy!

Re: the delegate elections – no one on my slate was elected. We would have been were it not for our new assemblyman bascially backing the other slate and using his connections to get out voters who are part of a very cohesive ethnic community in my neck of the woods. I don’t fault anyone for that – such are the ways of politics. And as the head of our slate said, this assemblyman has been working for over a decade to enable his community to have a voice that they didn’t have in the past, so I can’t be upset about that.

There were, unfortunately, other forces at work that were a bit more unsavory. Forces that tried to stay hidden, forces that broke with the bylaws of the very groups they purported to represent. Alas, those too are the ways of politics.

Luckily, though the have-to-remain-unnamed forces won in my district (thanks to the assemblyman’s help), in other districts they were handily defeated, including the district where I used to live and where many of my political friends still reside and were elected. Even sweeter, two of the prime movers of those forces were roundly squashed in their own bids for delegate status. The bitter may be bitter, but oh, how the sweet does wonderfully make up for it.

Actually, I’m not too bitter about the results of my district. It happened. And now it’s time to move on. Move on I shall. Because there are other ways of influencing and revitalizing the Democratic Party.

Christopher Hitchens is an ass.

I know this comes as no surprise to a number of y’all, but this time he has truly surpassed himself. Why? Because in the January 2007 Vanity Fair he deigns to explain to us, “Why Women Aren’t Funny.“

Granted, the name of the column is, “Provocation.” It is expected that what is written there is likely to raise more than a few hackles.

But this bilge? Please, girlfriend.

It’s not just that the premise from which Hitchens works is a faulty and patently disprovable one: in Hitchens’ world, while he admits there are many witty women, he goes on to imply that witty and funny are not related to one another. Which begs the question: why do both make people laugh?

It’s also that the “logic” which he uses is tenuous at best and laughable (hee?) at worst. It took me three tries to slog through the piece of crap he tries to pass off as insight into womens’ humor centers. I still don’t understand it. I think my brain automatically shuts off when presented with faulty “logic,” in an effort keep me from going all Nomad and self-destructing.

Hitchens can bite my shiny white ass.

(Hey, it ain’t exactly wit, but he don’t deserve my wit.)