Cognitive Dissonance

Google Ads doesn't understand me. I am a liberal. I am very liberal. I do not welcome ads for Newt's newsletter or any other crap Newt's peddling, like a film about Saint Ronnie. I hate the insurance companies and the way they've wormed their way into the medicare system. They have no role to play in Medicare except to suck money out of the system and into their pockets. They game the system and add another layer of bean counting bureaucrats on top of the one that managed quite nicely without their layer of rules and restrictions. I hate the private insurance companies and their lobbyists. Do you hear me google ads? We could work together or I could work against you. But I will not moderate my content to suit your right-wing paymasters. In fact, you're right wing content just makes me madder at what a crappy job the folks you advertise for have done running the country.

Let's take the ads for "Medicare Advantage." There is Medicare and there is the extra layer of fees and paperwork and pencil pushers known as "Medicare Advantage," some bastard child of the Insurance Industry and Medicare. We do not need a private insurance company meddling with Medicare. Medicare is the public option I'd like the rest of you to have. "Medicare Advantage" is some Frankenstein monster that the private insurance companies are trying to turn Medicare into. Not public at all. Publicly financed but disbursed to some monster corporation like United Healthcare which bankrupted me when they didn't like the diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder. Well fuck you, United Healthcare. I hope you shrivel and die.

DOMA is Dumb

Bill Clinton didn't really become Bubba to me until he signed the Defense of Marriage Act. It was such a stupid thing to do. And the only thing that threatened Bubba's marriage was Bubba's philandering.

Don't Ask Don't Tell is another bit of idiocy, but since it deals with the military and the military has always had a lot of neanderthals at the top (I guess rising through the ranks means swallowing a lot of shit on the way) and since pretense and machismo are part of that culture, Don't Ask, Don't Tell just seemed like more military silliness. But DOMA suggests that heterosexual marriage is a fragile institution that could not withstand such a serious threat as homosexual marriage. This seems to suggest that most heterosexuals would, given the choice, jump ship rather than tough it out in their shaky, fragile, boring straight marriages. Maybe Larry Craig and Larry Haggard were just the tip of the gay iceberg, and if given a legal alternative to the boring straight marriages most men were in, would bring the shaky facade crashing down around our sinful (sic) heads.

What I cannot understand is Obama's tepid support for the civil rights of the gay and lesbian community. Heterosexual marriage does not need defending from the gay and lesbian community. The only thing threatening straight marriage is the philandering and lying behavior of the two people in each of those shaky straight marriages.

For a Great Read Call Nick

Nick came over earlier in the week and brought a bag of books from his shelves for me to read. My favorite thing is to read a good book and have a good nap every day. When I work that schedule out I feel I'm living right. Oh I could find enough urgent chores to do every day, but the world will not end if I spend the whole day reading. And with a book as good as this, I can think of nothing better to do, unless it involved writing a book this beautifully written. I just started it to calm myself this afternoon, but I'm already hooked on the gorgeous writing and the WWI setting in a village in France. In case you don't do backwards (or mirror) reading, the translated title is By A Slow River, written by Phillippe Claudel (winner of the Prix Renaudot)

There is a translator's note that says, in French the novel is called Les Ames Grises--litterally, The Gray Souls. Just my favorite kind of book. I do not look for shallow, entertaining and commercial fare when reading books. I hate, positively hate Stephen King. He may be very diverting and grab you by the throat, but I prefer subtlety and depth to entertainment. Yes, dear, I know I'm a snob.

Grief Turns to Rage

I visited my friend Z yesterday. Her middle son is the only family member staying with her now. He believes that the mind is all it takes to heal the body. If she had her mind in the "right space" or some shit like that, she could heal herself. I want to scream when she tells me this, but wait to see what else she says. She says she plans to get the PET scan today and then plan from there. So far she hates every oncologist at the Huntsman Institute. Why? Because they tell her this cancer cannot be treated with radiation and diet alone. Some doctor in Peteluma has told her that it can be treated with just radiation and diet. She hasn't met the doctor in Peteluma, but she has talked to him on the phone and likes his "approach." I have choked back so much incredulity and anger that I'm about poisoned by my own rage and frustration. I know it won't help her if I argue with her, so I tell her I'm glad she's found a doctor she "believes in."

This morning two things have happened to flip my switch from mild irritation to full blown screaming, out of control rage. Marley was outside for ten minutes. When I let her in I noticed she peed on the second step down from the porch. Then she waltzes in the house and shits on the rug. I calmly clean it up and put her back outside. Then I lost my internet connection. I tried to fix it myself to no avail. I called Comcast. It took two tries to fix the problem but by the second try I was so pissed-off I was screaming. Seriously. Screaming! Now it works again, but I'm poisoned by the flood of adrenalin coursing through my system. I'll now back slowly away from the computer and call my shrink for an emergency appointment.

Marley Trains Me

I spent three nights listening to Marley scream her outrage that just because she'd been spayed and just because she has a little peeing problem, she's been banned from sleeping on my bed nestled in my old green TSE cashmere cardigan snuggled up to her bedraggled Mr Doody. Marley seems to be feeling no pain and is unwilling to let a little surgery get in the way of her having fun. I wish I had Marley's plucky attitude. The only problem for Marley is that it just keeps raining. Marley doesn't like the rain. I watch for moments of sunshine and then cheerfully lead the way outside just like I'm pack leader. But Marley knows who's really in charge of this house.

The Great Depression

Here Marley is helping with the tree clean up. I knew then that Marley's hysterectomy was scheduled but she didn't yet. There is so much more going on besides Marley's hysterectomy. There is my best friend and her diagnosis of cancer and her commitment to "alternative modalities" that has the most impact on my feelings. I feel damn sorry for Marley. But I'm terrified that I may lose my best friend and much too soon. So I'm very sad to begin with. Even without the abyss looming I'm sad. It is my nature to be gloomy. It's either gloomy or euphoria. Happy? So fleeting it hardly registers. I have happy moments, but they happen inside the larger sadness.

Anyway, to get back to Marley and her hysterectomy on last Thursday during the day. While she was gone I was in a cleaning frenzy. Frenzied cleaning can take your mind off most everything if you do it right. But during this cleaning frenzy I not only found the pool of Marley pee in the greenhouse, but I also found the secret spot beside the garbage bag full of Navaho rugs neatly rolled and stored under the bed. You'd think I'd have smelled it. But she got between the tool box (full of prescription drugs I dispense to my weekly pill minder which I keep in the top dresser drawer to take out day by day so I never ever miss a days pills) and the roll of rugs incased in plastic bag. There she peed often enough for a small pond beneath the roll of rugs so rank when I dragged it out I cried not tears of sorrow, but the burning eyes and the tears of ammonia exposure. It dripped across the full expanse of the freshly cleaned Persian rugs and dripped on painted concrete floor on it's way to the door as I carried it outside to land on the deck in the pouring rain. One storm after another. Yes, we need the rain, but this much? I know of only one thing other than stress that can trigger an asthma attack for me and that's mold. I can smell it now when I go outside. Do you notice a theme here?

It took hours of trying to make myself flat enough to squeeze enough of my upper body under my heavy brass bed trying to reach every inch of space with a soapy rag over and over until all I could smell is Spic and Span. I worked so hard I dripped sweat, my hair soaked with sweat. I cursed the entire time. The only bright spot in this discovery of another Marley pee pool is that the roll of rugs kept the pee from continuing it's movement toward the east side of this slightly sloping floor and soaking into the Tibetan run under Cyrus' beds . Nothing's square in this place. And since I haven't been willing to find another little disaster I have refused to actually look inside the bag afraid I'll find that the rugs are ruined. But know this, it doesn't take much to make me cry right now, and my hair-trigger is cocked and has blown many times these past few days. Friends arriving unexpectedly have sent me over the edge into a shocking rage. I hope they will forgive me, but I haven't got what it takes to call and tell them I'm sorry about only one of the three things that pissed me off. Partly because I really was mad about several things that they'd walked into like a dare, like a bad move in a bad movie.

Marley came home and I still didn't have a clean house. As it turned out, it was just as well. Marley was in a little kennel with toweling for bedding, and Marley needed to be kept in her little kennel since she's recovering from major surgery. For almost 20 hours Marley hadn't eaten or drunk water. So I wasn't worried about her having to go potty. She came home with two prescriptions to take if she showed signs of pain or agitation. She came home with the plastic collar to use if she obsessively licked her sutured belly. I hoped not to have to use it since it looks like a kind of torture devise to me.

When she fully wakes from the anesthesia she whines pitifully. I give her tiny bits of soft food on my finger which she gobbles. I leave her kennel door open and she takes a couple of wobbly steps out on the floor and squats to pee. Okay, I give her a pass on that one. She is whiney and seems altogether out of sort. I know that feeling. I too had a hysterectomy long ago and it was the anesthesia that was the worst for me. I give her one of her pain pills, the Rimadyl and one of the anxiety pills to keep her from being over active and chewing at her stitches. She goes back into the kennel and curls up to sleep again. Then about an hour later she is awake and whining horribly. She scratching at the bedding in her kennel and a horrible stink is issuing from it's dark interior. I carry her in her kennel into the bathroom, since my nose tells me she's pooped in her bed. As it turns out her bum is leaking baby diarrhea, the color of mashed and runny yam and very foul smelling. There are only a few little smudges of it on her bedding, but her butt and tail are coated. I wash her off, change her bedding, give her on of the pills the Vet sent home with her to calm her if she's agitated. And she's agitated. I put her back into her kennel carry her back to the space by my bed so I can watch her. But now she wakes every couple of hours to whine. I take her out to pee and poop, but she doesn't like the rain. So she stands on the porch. When we come back in she pees on the persian rug before going back into her kennel. I am dancing on the fragile edge of my bipolar balance beam. I have missed two of my doses of the drugs that keep me sane and the drugs that keep my heart beating normally and the high blood pressure medication. I'm off my rocker and have no reserves.

And in the midst of all of this my three back lower right molars have abscessed. I am in agony but I was able to reach my dentist on his emergency number. I'm now taking antibiotics and Lortab. So far no improvement, but we're not dead yet. Nick called and I thought it might be Z so I answered the phone. The minute I heard his voice and started talking, I started sobbing. He's bringing books this afternoon. I'm going to try and read out this rough patch.

Torture and the American Civil Liberties Union

Restore the Rule of Law
Please note that by playing this clip You Tube and Google will place a long-term cookie on your computer. Please see You Tube's privacy statement on their website and Google's privacy statement on theirs to learn more. To view the ACLU's privacy statement, click here. Why does accountability matter? What can I do to demand it? See the evidence of torture We are finally beginning to learn the full scope of the Bush administration's torture program. Government documents show that hundreds of prisoners were tortured in the custody of the CIA and Department of Defense, some of them killed in the course of interrogations. Justice Department memos show that the torture policies were devised and developed at the highest levels of the Bush administration. The ACLU is committed to restoring the rule of law. We will fight for the disclosure of the torture files that are still secret. We will advocate for the victims of the Bush administration's unlawful policies. We will press Congress to appoint a select committee that can investigate the roots of the torture program and recommend legislative changes to ensure that the abuses of the last eight years are not repeated. And we will advocate for the appointment of an independent prosecutor to examine issues of criminal responsibility. We can't sweep the abuses of the last eight years under the rug. Accountability for torture is a legal, political, and moral imperative.
	Torture Photo Release Decision Should Be Left To Courts, Says ACLU >> MORE TORTURE NEWS >>
	Submit evidence of torture to the Department of Justice >>
	Tools to help you fight for accountability for torture >>
	torture foia Freedom of Information Act litigation that has yielded over 100,000 pages of government documents concerning the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody overseas. Documents obtained by the ACLU include the infamous "torture memos" which provided the legal justification for the CIA's torture program. MORE >>
	Ali v. Rumsfeld et al A civil lawsuit seeking damages on behalf of nine men who were tortured in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. MORE >>
	Mohammed et al. v. Jeppesen A civil lawsuit that seeks to hold Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan Inc. liable for its knowing participation in the "extraordinary rendition" of five men. MORE >>
NEWS (View All Torture News ) BLOG (View All Torture Posts) Torture Photo Release Decision Should Be Left To Courts, Says ACLU Fri, 12 Jun 2009 Obama Administration Seeks To Keep Torture Victims From Having Day In Court Fri, 12 Jun 2009 Court Gives Government More Time To Pursue Legal Options On Torture Photos Thu, 11 Jun 2009 ACLU Files Lawsuit Seeking Disclosure Of Still-Secret Torture Documents Thu, 11 Jun 2009 ACLU Letter to the Department of Defense Regarding Its Level 1 Anti-terrorism Training Materials Wed, 10 Jun 2009 ACLU Challenges Defense Department Personnel Policy To Regard Lawful Protests As “Low-Level Terrorism” Wed, 10 Jun 2009 ACLU Challenges Defense Department Personnel Policy To Regard Lawful Protests As “Low-Level Terrorism” Wed, 10 Jun 2009 CIA Refuses To Disclose Interrogation Tape Documents Tue, 9 Jun 2009 Senate Questions Indefinite Detention Without Charge Tue, 9 Jun 2009 Rep. Harman Introduces Bill To Restrain Domestic Deployment Of Spy Satellites Fri, 5 Jun 2009 DOJ Seeks Rehearing of ACLU Rendition Case Fri, 12 Jun 2009 Accountability Is Coming to the USA Fri, 12 Jun 2009 Torture, America, and Accountability Thu, 11 Jun 2009 Why Protect Whistleblowers? Wed, 10 Jun 2009 Jameel Jaffer Answers CIA’s "Propaganda" Charge on Hardball Wed, 10 Jun 2009 CIA Refuses to Hand Over Torture Tape Documents Tue, 09 Jun 2009 UN Special Rapporteur Calls for Transparency and Accountability Fri, 05 Jun 2009 Death by Detention Thu, 04 Jun 2009 Jimmy Carter on Accountability for Torture Wed, 03 Jun 2009 Case of Tortured U.S. Citizen Tests Obama Administration on Human Rights Tue, 02 Jun 2009

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Fear and Loathing in Salt Lake

My tolerance level has reached rock bottom. Tomorrow is my 65th birthday, a birthday I consider something of a milestone. But I have never felt less like celebrating anything. Ba Humbug! Birthdays are for children. A month or so ago I thought I wanted to have a party and made the mistake of saying so in front of a couple of friends. They got all excited about it. And as they wanted to start planning a party, I started to want to ignore it. I started remembering myself last time I had a birthday party, locked in my upstairs office overlooking the backyard and pissed off. Yes, you heard it, pissed off big time. Oh I had my reasons, but still, it was my party even if one of my guests brought a very bad "Crossover CW" band. The only band member I really knew besides her was her first ex husband, the one she married when she was in her late teens. I'd gone to high school with the prick and he'd never changed, only gotten a bit more preachy and more pompous. And for a boy who'd called himself a "musician" as a teenager, he'd only gotten worse. I do not like music that calls for a "YEEHAW!" after every tune. And if an instrument requires an electrical chord to be played, my feeling is it ought not be played in a residential neighborhood or anywhere in my earshot for that matter. I prefer the acoustic instruments. They can be played quietly. The minute people I didn't know started showing up at my party, I left the back yard and retired to my little suite of rooms upstairs in the big house, overlooking the patio. Not only could they not see me, I didn't want them to see me. I was seething. If I'd had anyplace else to go, I'd have left home entirely. I don't like half the people I know. I sure as hell have no desire to feed and entertain strangers even if I might like them under other circumstances.

Only now the only person I've always loved, even when I was mad at her, is right in the middle of a medical catastrophe. And no one can do much more than run an errand now and then. It's bad for her throat to talk. But she can email me. She saw the pulmonary oncologist at Huntsman yesterday. Today they're doing a brain scan. Then next week a PET scan. She'd just as soon forego all the tests because she feels she's being tortured, and she doesn't believe in Western Medicine at all. And since her daughter was here I've been paralyzed.

The past month has rained almost everyday off and on and most nights all night. As the thunder storms roll down from the mountains it's cold at night. This time of year I'm usually starting to fuss over the high temperatures. Our current day time highs would usually be our night time temperatures. It's been in the very low 50s at night. Yea, I'm glad I don't have to fix the swamp cooler yet, but once it first warmed up I put away the blankets. Now I'm having to get them out again. It feels like Portland. I wouldn't be complaining about this weather if it were Portland. At least I haven't had to spend a fortune on water to keep the trees alive yet.

And the dogs aren't liking going out in the rain. Especially Mawley. She will shit on the front porch rather than have a drop of rain land on her. So I have had to clean wet shit off the navy rag rug on the front porch. Today Mawley got picked up at 8:10 by the House-call Vet. She gets her hysterectomy done today along with her nails, her teeth, her anal glands, and an i d chip implanted. Yesterday I discovered a spot in the greenhouse room where Mawley has been ducking out for a quick pee just out of my sight. When I found the pool of pee, it was under the greenhouse glass, which made me think I had a leak. So I spent half an hour trying to find the place the water was getting in only to discover that it was a pool of Mawley pee. Oh she may be cute, but she's not that cute.

And throughout the past month I haven't got my whole place really clean. Not once. Oh I've cleaned the bathroom and had good intentions to tackle the rest, but... Other things got in the way. I change my bed on a regular schedule and do the laundry, but I hate vacuuming worse than even floor scrubbing on my hands and knees. Which I must do today. And here I am still writing nothing much of interest unless you just like hearing old women bitch and moan.

I may skip tomorrow altogether. I know I haven't been very consistent about visiting as it is, but I'm now telling you I won't be visiting at all until I put my house in order.

Nightmare at KMart

There are a number of places I won't go and going to a bigbox store is high on my list of places to avoid at all cost. I have never been inside a Wal-Mart, I have only been to Target once and that was because I'd heard an old friend was working there and I wanted to see her--she'd disappeared for all her friends, and I'd bet her working at Target was one of the reasons she wasn't answering her phone. But yesterday I got a call from my friend who has cancer and she wanted me to run an errand for her.

I've been trying to get Z to let me do something for her, so this call to run an errand was just what I wanted. That is, until she told me where she wanted me to go. She assured me that she'd called ahead and asked them if they had the panties she wanted in the size and color she wanted. Yes, they told her yes they did. They are lying bastards but I'll get back to that later.

Ms M was here when Z called and told me to tell her that the KMart was closed. But no, sadly they are still open. Z's call to check on the panties she says she always buys there confirmed that they were open since they answered the phone as KMart and informed her that they had the items in stock. So after chain smoking for twenty minutes and getting stoned, I headed out to KMart. The road Z told me to take was closed so I had to detour to another route. I found it and parked in their huge and nearly empty parking lot. When I walked in the door, I had a dizzy spell and felt like I was going to faint. First sign of a panic attack.

I tried to spot a human being who worked there and finally located one woman. She pointed me in the direction of "Intimate Apparel." It was only half a mile away. Once there I spotted the wall with the packages of panties. They were supposed to have Jockey briefs in four-packs, size 5. Jesus! Size 5? I don't think I've ever worn a size 5 women's panty. The last panties I bought were a size 7 and they're a bit snug now, so I graduate to a bigger size next time I go hunting for panties on sale. Anyway, there were no packs of any kind in the Jockey brand. They had Fruit of the Loom, Pink, and various other brands of panties in the style called "briefs." This is "old woman's panties" for you children. Once the wall of bagged panties had been searched over and over to my growing annoyance, I started in on the standing fixtures. No Jockey brand anything. I think of checking out the men's underwear, but finally decide that's pointless since even if they have the Jockey brand they won't have old ladies panties in the men's department.

I search the adjoining departments looking for someone who works in the store. Nada. Zip. Zero humans of any kind working or shopping. It is an almost empty big box store. I can feel myself growing angrier by the second. I'm starting to shake with rage. I want to stand there and just scream. But I get a grip and start the long march back to the checkout lines. In the middle of the check out lines there is one lone guy doing nothing. There are no customers to check out. He just stands there kind of loitering. As I get closer it looks to me like he is mentally handicapped. Since I am mentally handicapped I have some compassion. None of this is his fault and I can't be mad at him. I ask him to page someone to meet me in women's panties. He just looks confused, so I launch myself into the story of my errand. Finally he nods, and picks up the phone. I hear his voice go sailing out into the empty space. It seems to echo back at us. I head back to what he called "ladies panties." "Could someone please meet a customer in ladies panties?"

I wait what seems like five minutes or so shuffling from foot to foot, now loitering alone in ladies panties. Finally a very short, round, Hispanic woman approaches me. I tell her what I'm looking for and she does exactly what I did. She goes through the entire wall of panties and then says, "We must not carry them." I tell her about Z's call to confirm that they, KMart, not only carried them but had the four packs in the style and two colors she wanted and they had them in her size. She just looks at me and shrugs. I say, "Would you call my friend and tell her that you, a KMart employee, have told me, after a careful search, that no, you do not have the panties she called about and was told KMart carries and had in stock in her size?"

We head back to the front of the store where customer service is hidden in a cubby. She picks up a phone and asks me for Z's number. She calls. Z's son takes the call and the passes the phone to Z. The Hispanic clerk tells Z they don't have the panties she wants. Z tells her that she called and was told that they do to have her panties and tells her what they are. The clerk is nodding her head through all of this and then says, "Oh yes, we have those." I am gob stopped. I am standing there with my mouth hanging open. WTF? We both searched the place. No they don't have them. But now we trudge back across the store to the "intimate appearal department. We do the whole thing again. I find a pack of brand "Pink" old ladies white panties. They are 100% cotton. It's a six pack, not a four pack and there are no black "Pink" panties at all. So back we go, and this time I'm packing the six pack of brand Pink panties. Again the call. Again the discussion. Then I just reach over and take the phone. I tell Z exactly what's happened. She says, "But I don't understand it. I called. They said they had them. In my size." I tell her about the "Pink" panties and get her permission to buy them. It only takes ten minutes to ring them up.

When I leave the store with a bag clutched to my chest, I'm gasping for air and shaking with rage. It's taken over an hour to run an unsuccessful errand. I get lost looking for Z's street coming from a different direction. I'm lost in BFE.

When I get to Z's I've used a quarter of a tank of gas and my patience. I have no reserves. I must get myself under control so I don't bring bad energy into her house. I know how deadly my bad energy can be. So I do a little deep breathing on the front porch before I let myself in. I find her on the back porch surrounded by the three most competent men in her life. They are calm and sweet. By the time I leave, I feel almost normal again.

Medicare Explained By One Who Knows

You may not realize this but fashion models are considered contract labor. We have agents to promote us and manage our bookings for a hefty 15% of our earnings. But all the rest is up to us. And in order to get the best possible tax help a model needs a tax accountant who specializes in Entertainment Industry tax rules. Then we have to provide for our own insurance.

While I was healthy and working I bought my medical insurance from United Healthcare, the only large insurance company providing coverage for individuals in Utah at the time. In the beginning my monthly premium was $325 a month. I thought that was pretty high, but it was the only option. Then I started getting hefty premium raises every six months or so. It was not that I was sick, it was just "a little adjustment for the rate of inflation" according to the billings person at United Health Care.

I ran into a rough patch. In a six months check-up with my internist, where urinalysis and blood work were done, I seemed to be having a "sugar spill" in my urine. This required further tests and a visit with an endocrinologist. More tests were done. And in the end, it turned out to be one of the many strange permutations of stress and depression. Then I got a notice that my insurance had gone up to $500 a month. But the drugs for depression were very expensive, so I kept the insurance. But I also kept getting more and more depressed. I was referred to a good psychiatrist who diagnosed me with bipolar disorder and put me on a good mood stabilizer (another very expensive drug) which made it possible for me to keep working so I could afford my insurance. I was chasing my tail.

Within a month of getting that Bipolar diagnosis Untied Health Care doubled my monthly premium. At $1,000 a month for just me, I had to drop private coverage. Then I couldn't afford to pay for my therapist, get my drugs filled, or pay for follow-up care. No psychiatrist will prescribe without follow-up care.

As I grew more stressed by the depression and the rising bills, I was able to work less and less. Finally I was bankrupt. Fortunately I filed before the rules were changed for individuals filing for bankruptcy. So medical bills and the cost of private health insurance ruined me economically. Not having insurance made it impossible for me to pay for my drugs and this led to a lengthy hospitalization for psychosis. Which was the result of untreated bipolar disorder.

I was advised to apply for disability. I applied with all the documentation they required and they turned me down after a three month wait while they decided my fate. A friend of mine who's a social worker told me that all first-time applications for disability are turned down, no matter what. Proforma. I reapplied and was turned down again. After further conversation with my friend I discovered that there were attorneys whose specialty was disability law. So I got a disability attorney. They assess your case and if they're pretty sure they can prevail they take your case for a percentage of the lump sum award. If you finally get on disability they reimburse you for the time from your first rejection to a successful outcome. This whole process took over two years, so even though my monthly disability stipend is the minimum possible, three years worth is a tidy sum. The payout is based on your earnings at the time of your award and for the three previous years. These are the lowest earning years for most people who end up on disability. So I got roughly $700 a month to live on and Medicare. It is Medicare that saved my life. And that is not hyperbole. Once I was on Social Security Disability and Medicare parts A, B, and D (the only good thing G W Bush did in his entire presidency) have saved my life. Once on Medicare I was eligible for the fabulous care by Valley Mental Health and the Master's Program for bipolar patients over 50. They saved my life, and that is not hyperbole.

Medicare is far better coverage than my $1,000 a month private insurance. Every referral from my internist had to be okayed by some bean counter at United Health Care. Under Medicare I have never had to wait while a bureaucrat has weighed whether or not my well being was worth the cost. And if I needed help finding the part D private piece of the pie that Bush gave the private sector, a "bureaucrat" at Medicare patiently helped me find the one that would cover all my drugs at the lowest cost. In my case that's Etna. Since my income is so low, I get extra help with drug costs, so there is no "doughnut hole" for me. If the public sector were picking up the cost of the part D coverage it would be simpler and therefore less expensive for taxpayers. It was giving part D to the private sector including the drug companies, that has made part D a problem for so many. It is the drug companies and the private insurance companies who lobbied so hard for their hand out from the Bush Administration that has driven up the cost of that program and made it a bureaucratic nightmare for so many senior citizens and their families to negotiate.

I have the experience of both options--private and public. I'll take the simplicity of the public option over the bean counters in the private sector any day.

Blues Legend Koko Taylor Died

Koko Taylor used to make regular stops in Salt Lake City on her way from somehwere to somewhere else. She sang in a small downtown club where almost every seat was a front row seat. It was called the Zephyr. There was a dance floor. And in those days I danced. Koko always packed the place and usually on a Thursday night. I heard her sing this song. Saw sweat drop from her face to her chest and glisten there. She was one of the great Blues legends. I'm sad she will no longer be belting out the great Blues songs of her lifetime. We will miss you Koko.

A Green Ash Tree for La Belette Rouge

This is the largest green ash tree in the Salt Lake Valley according to the experts at Arbor Care. It grows in my backyard. When I was a child I had the world's best rope and wood slat swing that hung from an enormous branch that is now a phantom limb. Green ash trees fell prey to a borer and few survived. We aggressively treated this tree. It survived and still grows at an almost alarming rate. It is a very heavy wood and in a big wind storm it self prunes. Several years ago a smallish branch came down breaking several of the tiles on the roof of the main house. There is no way to really give you an idea how large this tree is, but the tall two storied house is a toy beneath it.

Chris Will You Please Stop Booking This Racist Pig

Lifted from yesterday's Salon Opinion Piece by Joe Conason
This has been a screaming point for me for a long time. I do not understand why Chris Matthews or any News Show host on MSNBC would book this racist prick.

In Washington media circles, Pat Buchanan is a well-liked and avuncular figure, presumably owing to his personal qualities rather than his crank politics, but for him to be encouraged to pontificate endlessly on the subject of race on television is worse than ludicrous. The late William F. Buckley Jr. expelled Buchanan from the pages of the National Review many years ago for his crudely anti-Semitic rants, which included a very unattractive tinge of admiration for Hitler. (Prejudice against Jews, unlike some other forms of bigotry, is anathema to most conservatives.) So obnoxious was Pat's blustering bully-boy attitude that he became intolerable even to the intolerant.

As for racism, where to begin with him? Discussing Sotomayor on MSNBC, Buchanan accused her of adopting the same attitudes that had kept blacks down in old Dixie. "Her entire career is based on advancing people of color, which is done at the expense of white people," he cried in that familiar high-pitched whine. "That was what was done in the South. They're doing it now to white males now…"

Except that Pat didn't mind so much when "they" were doing it to black folks in the South. He explicitly supported the race-based "Southern strategy" of his old boss Richard Nixon, whom he advised to avoid meeting with Coretta King one year after the murder of her husband, Martin Luther King Jr. In April 1969, he warned Nixon in a White House memo that visiting Mrs. King would "outrage many, many people who believe Dr. King was a fraud and a demagogue and perhaps worse ... Others consider him the Devil incarnate. Dr. King is one of the most divisive men in contemporary history."

Did Pat's views toward blacks and other minorities mellow over the decades? More than 20 years later, he was still supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa, noting that there was nothing in our own Constitution that would preclude a white minority ruling a black majority. (Such is the color-blind jurisprudence that he would no doubt like to see on the high court. Of course, he also told Nixon to burn the Watergate tapes, a key indication of his deep respect for law and justice.)

In his memoir, "Right From the Start," he suggested that the segregated District of Columbia of his boyhood had worked just fine:

"There were no politics to polarize us then, to magnify every slight. The "negroes" of Washington had their public schools, restaurants, bars, movie houses, playgrounds and churches; and we had ours."

Feeling Good

This Little Piggy Went....

Oh my fucking god, I've just torn my toenail off. I have turned into my own torturer. Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch.....

We Have The Beginnings of a Plan

I never thought I'd say this to you, John Huntsman, but thanks for the great Huntsman Cancer Institute. And thanks to you, Manal, for being there working at the Huntsman Cancer Institute and checking that doctor out. I sure know how to pick the great daughters to informally adopt. And thanks to you, Ms M, for bringing that movie a week ago I didn't know I'd need to watch today. Seven Pounds. It helped to cry those tears. And thanks to you, Susu, for sending me a copy of your book of poetry. It takes me back through all the time we knew each other, and before, and after all those years. It has been a comfort to read your gorgeous words and remember how close we all once were, when we were young, you, Z, and I. We were something weren't we? Someday I'll write about us all. I left us out of the novel Maggy, because we were too big for her story. We deserve our own book. Sleep well, Z. Tomorrow we have work to do.

And thanks to all of you and your good energy and kind words and the warm wishes. Thanks to you, I'm as centered as I've ever been.

Small Cell Squamous Lung Cancer

It is very bad news. The healthy one, the thin one, the vegetarian, the one who quit smoking very young (she dabbled for a couple of years as a rebellion, but never really took to it) the one with children and grandchildren, the one with a million reasons to live--she's the one with lung cancer. The crazy one with not a single living relative and damn few friends, the one who will not quit smoking for anyone or anything, the one who's overweight, who eats whatever she wants, stays up all night, sleeps late, the one who isn't careful about anything, the one who takes at least thirteen pills a day and chases them with espresso, the one who forgets to put anything on her stomach until four in the afternoon and sucks down ice cream and potato chips after midnight--she's the one in the pink, who seems destined to keep hanging on, even when she doesn't want to.

And some would tell me that god would have a plan in all of this.

The Z of Time and Illness

The passage of time is a mystery to me
Like the days that pass when I do nothing
And the tasks go undone, the weeds take over
The tree, though topped stands like a hulking monster
It presses on the fence, tangled round it's gorgeous trunk
The upper limbs rank with the scent of early decay and last night's
Rain so rare this time of year I will remember it as April not late
May, early June, my birthday always comes too soon

The sister of my soul, my whole life long, the level headed one
Now puts her fate in the hands of anyone with a crackpot theory
Or so I think, other than the doctor who says, it's there where the
Trachea branches into the primary bronchi just before it reaches the
Fertile soil of the lungs in and out of hardly any oxygen there rests the mass
Growing like the weeds, the vines, the knot of trunk that pushes on the fence.

No air flows and a vocal chord is paralyzed making the voice a high tight complaint
The lack of options narrows down to doing almost nothing, or getting up and fighting
As if all life depended on it. Her blood depleted of breath's oxygen one lung closed
She wants to think it over. Odd that she, the child of a mathematician who was the
Perfect parent, has rejected hard science, medicine, the certainty of numbers, pulse ox
Sed rate in favor of intuition, the spirituality of mysticism, the soul's belief in the souls truth

I can do nothing but await her fate as if my own life depended on this one decision still unmade.

The Unthinkable

I won't be visiting much over the next little while. My closest friend, Z, the one who has power of attorney over my estate and medical care has either a treatable cancer, or lymphoma that has gone on too long, undiagnosed and untreated, to be anything but a death sentence. She has had polymyalgia rheumatica and so has ignored the dry hacking cough for so long I can't remember when it started. I remember asking her about it as long as 6 or 8 months ago. She thought it was one thing and another. Finally she began to have trouble breathing. It was nothing in her lungs; they were clear. She worries about money. Worries about unnecessary medical expenses and doesn't want to worry her kids or burden them. She has been a vegetarian for 40 years but for the last year or more has been very careless about eating well. Prefers to manage it all homeopathically. But her sed rate is alarmingly high. The prednisone to treat the polymyalgia rheumatica might have been the cause of her lack of apatite, lack of interest in food, fatigue, weakness, depression, the low grade fever, night sweats. She has lost so much weight, but blamed it on the prednisone. She thinks she can treat this illness with fresh juices. She worries about the fact that she hasn't the strength to mow the lawn. And it goes on like this for so long. Now they have found a mass in the primary bronchi which, thus, far appears to be lymphatic tissue. Friday she was told that it is either bad news but treatable, or bad news and untreatable. A biopsy is scheduled for Monday. She is convinced it is lymphoma that has spread throughout her body. Too late to treat. I argue with her. We don't know yet. She has all the symptoms and has for so long, thinking it was the prednisone that caused the night sweats, the fatigue and all the rest. She has finally told her children. Her daughter flew in last night. Z asked me to come over yesterday and help her get ready for her kids. God forbid they should now how hard it's been for her. Her back lawn is a meadow. The two dogs matted and shaggy. All I can do is sit on the back porch with her and listen.

She has been the patient friend, the rock of Gibraltar, my sane and steady friend since we were both 17 and early admissions students at the University of Utah. We were the only girls with the first group of students ever admitted to the U in their brand new Early Admissions program. We could not have been less alike. She has always said hers was the perfect loving and supportive family. Her father was Chairman of the Math Department.

My father was getting his PhD in psychology and I couldn't have had a worse family life. My reasons for skipping my senior year were complicated-- mostly I just wanted to get out of my parents house. My home life had always been difficult, so living in the dorms at the U sounded like paradise to me. Z continued living at home with her family.

There have been times in our long history together when one or the other of us was living half a world away from the other. Years at a time when we were not in touch. But whenever we saw each other, it was as if no time at all had passed and we would again take up the conversation as if it had been paused for the length of time it would take to make a cup of tea. I can't imagine life without her. I never thought for a second that I would outlive her. It is unthinkable. I am numb and furious.

My Best Friend Needs Me

My best friend is having a life threatening medical crisis. She needs me. I'll write when I can, but please don't leave me.