Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Presidents Day, Independence Day, Inauguration Day, et al

When I woke up this Veterans Day morning I thought about two things: why did my neighbors set their alarms damnit, its a holiday and my little brother.

He's an Intel Specialist for the Army and holds one the highest level of security clearance. Not a true top-tier secret squirrel, but enough so that what he does is simply referred to as "work" and this post required five drafts before it was approved for publication.

At 6 feet tall, 225 pounds, he has the type of presence you get from a heavily-narrated Morgan Freeman movie. Animals are oddly drawn to him. When he left for basic training, my parents dog lapsed into a three month long depression and gained 10 pounds.

Civic duty and service are the sort bureaucratic buzz words he'd never use to describe what he does. Silly and redundant compared to the experiences he's shared. The fellow solider who joined the Army after his entire family was killed during an uprising in Syria, to the 12 hour shift he took sitting with a solider suffering from PTSD to ensure he didn't comimit suicide, to the Drill Sergeant who jumped on top of a live grenade that was mis-thrown during a training exercise (the grenade, 1 of about 100 used that day, was a dud).

It culminates into a combination of worry and respect. I worry that some right-wing fruitcake will finagle his way into office and his inane ramblings will keep the U.S. locked in combat for years to come.

But I respect what my brother, and all the servicemen and women, absent motive or political agenda, are willing to give.

Everything I Know Is Ridiculous - Friday the 13th Edition

5) Alfred Hitchcock, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, and Nate Silver are among the celebrities born on a Friday the 13th. 

4) The origin of triskaidekaphobia or fear of Friday the 13th is actually unknown. But some research suggests that because the number 12 is considered a perfect number or number of completeness, number 13 simply seems super lame by comparison. 

3) Tupac Shakur died on Friday, September 13, 1996.

2) There are some seriously spooky events that have occurred on a Friday the 13th. 

1)

 

Everything I Know Is Ridiculous - Part I

5) There's a Wikipedia page containing a fairly comprehensive list of practical jokes, pranks, gags, and shenanigans. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to pick up some verbal agreement forms for work. 
4) There is an alarming amount of information availble for becoming a successful RPS (Rock, Paper, Scissors) player.

3) UFO enthusiast argue that proof of Ancient Aliens is clear from the many portrayals of flying crafts and discs in prehistoric paintings. It may seem difficult to make a factual claim of extraterrestrial existence based on its portrayal in heavily religious works, but elephants were discovered because they appeared in all those pictures of unicorns.

"You know, sometimes it feels like I don't actually exist."  

2) An eidetic or photographic memory is a vivid visual recollection with limited exposure. Neither have been scientifically proven, attributed instead to use of mnemonic devices, even obsessive compulsive disorder, however many notable people, including Nikola Tesla, have claimed to possess an eidetic memory.  
1) Now go home and get your fucking shinebox.

Blue Unicorns

It took awhile for my parents to come to terms with to my diagnosis of bipolar disorder. For reasons we may never understand, my mother had a markedly easier time accepting the diagnosis than my father. 

But the other day, my dad told me he thinks he's finally understanding it. "I mean," he explained, "if you see blue unicorns running up and down Connecticut Avenue, who cares? Maybe I see red unicorns. The point is, we all have our unicorns."

"Well Dad, mine are actually pink."

"Well, I think they're actually white, aren't they?"

"Well, they actually don't exist so I guess there's no reason to argue about the color, but I see your point, and it actually means a lot."

"Just remember Peanut, we all have our unicorns."

Any situation that can prompt my  father, with his PhD in atomic physics to discuss blue unicorns with me simply because he's trying to better understand what I'm experiencing, makes me feel like if we look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling we'll find that unicorns actually are all around.

Multiple Sclerosis and Me: 5 Things I've learned about MS - Part IV

5)

 

4)

3)

2)

1)

The Great and Powerful Oz

How do you explain anxiety to someone who has never experienced it? Anxiety lives in a bar at last call. And while he's always had a few too many, he's full of advice

"Aren't you a little old for the bar scene? That's what Carol said at least."

"Everyone here is more successful than you. We were all talking about it."

"Listen, I'm just going to say it that boyfriend of yours, he's cheating on you."

"You can drive home. Taking a cab means you're a pussy."

"That guy seems alright, just go home with him. Your friends think it's weird you're not already married yet."

Both anxiety and drunks are belligerent loudmouths who rely on a reality that's entirely fictional. Since both are immune to logic and reason, combating anxiety is a process that some struggle with their entire lives.

And while we'd never allow a drunk to drive our children to school, manage our stock investments, or even choose a paint color for us, it takes years of therapy and self-reflection to realize that a drunk's and anxiety's perceptions are equally distorted. They both owe their sloppy success to a combination of illusion, confusion, and control.

Anxiety treatment programs have begun to shift their focus from attempting to eliminate every possible anxiety trigger tand instead concentrate on an internal shift one's locus of control. Building a foundation of empowerment, self-esteem, and positive thinking can be accomplished through journaling, healthy habits, or civil service.

This makes it easier to understand Dorthy's epiphany at the end of The Wizard of Oz. After experiencing an esteem enhancing journey (which did involve killing someone, but we'll put a pin in that) she was able to see that The Great and Powerful Oz was not this all powerful omnipotent being, but rather a shadowy shut-in with a Mutchkin fetish, possessing all the wizardry skills of a rent-by-the-hour birthday party magician.

Multiple Sclerosis and Me: 5 Things I've learned about MS - Part III

5) MS Clusters are the perceived high number of MS cases in a specific time period or area. Clusters could provide clues to environmental or genetic triggers of the disease, however, to date cluster studies have not produced clear evidence for causative or triggering factors.
4) This year's World MS Day is May 25, 2016. The theme will be "Independance."  
3) A lumbar puncture, also called a spinal tap, is used to diagnose all types of MS. Although the procedure sounds alarming, it's completely painless, which makes my screaming entirely unnecessary. But it felt good to do. 
2) I tell ya MS is getting on my last nerve. 

1) Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is not affiliated with MS-13. So don't bother asking your doctor about it.

Multiple Sclerosis and Me: 5 Things I've learned about MS - Part II

5) The diagnosis process is like being on an episode of House. 

4) When my MS diagnosis emerged on the coattails of my bipolar dianosis, doctors used humor (e.g. "Well someone drew the genetics short straw!") to help me understand this new condition. 

3) Famous people with MS include: Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Jack Osbourne. Couldn't we have gotten someone on the A-List?
2) MS loves the ladies, affecting more women than men by a whopping 2:1 ratio.  However, disease severity is worse in men.

1) MS affects coordination and balance which can result in stumbling or falling. But the doctor says it's okay as long as my falling is hilarious.

Multiple Sclerosis and Me: 5 Things I've learned about MS

My family contains some of DCs finest armchair physicians. Until recently, bipolar was simply a condition I had made up to embarrass my family and make the neighbors uncomfortable. 

5) It turns out, there's a strong correlation between bipolar and Multiple Sclerosis. These two unexpected BFFs follow similar patterns of flare-ups and remissions, each magnifying the symptoms of the other culminating into what's medically known as "an arrest".
4) Multiple Sclerosis symptoms include pain, headache, dizziness, tremors, and bowel problems.

3) Multiple Sclerosis offers a sampling of four meet-your-maker options; which is very generous considering my bookie only gave me two. 

• Relapsing-Remitting – clearly defined attacks lasting from days to weeks, with full recovery or with some remaining neurological symptoms and deficits upon recovery. Periods between relapses are stable and absent of disease progression. This is by far the most common form of the disease.
• Secondary-Progressive – begins initially with a relapsing-remitting course that becomes consistently progressive and includes occasional relapses and minor remission. Deficits are accumulated without recovery between attacks.
• Primary-Progressive – progression of level of disability from the onset without any distinct relapses of remissions. Temporary, minor improvements may be experienced.
• Progressive-Relapsing – clear progression in disability level from the onset, but also clear acute relapses that may or may not include memory.

2) Can't stand the suspense of just how and when you'll join sweet oblivion? By exercising your Right to Die, an option most people select after working with an attorney. I trust that, when the time comes, my POA will lead me onto Brahmaloka, the fourth level of Tibetiam Heaven, without incident.

1) Medical Science has skyrocketed over the past two decades with many advances in the treatment and maintenance of MS. Even if all else fails, God Willing, I'll still be able to go out with a pair of giant knockers.

Thanksgiving and Me: 5 Things I've Learned

1) Snoopy has appeared as a giant balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade more times than any other character in history, a whopping 38 times. Bet you feel guilty about how often you walk your dog.

2) It's a bit nebulous why it became a tradition to pardon a turkey.

3) Since 1934, the Detroit Lions have "played" a game every Thanksgiving.

4) What does your favorite Thanksgiving food say about you?
5) This is Ralph the Thanksgiving Turkey. He looks delicious.

From Paris With Love

I went to the emergency room this Saturday night. The doctor diagnosed me with the worst case of buzz kill he'd ever seen.

Exactly one and a half drinks into the night, and six weeks before the Paris Marathon three friends and I had been training for, I felt an overwhelming need to introduce my face to the floor of a local hookah establishment. It was a potential Code WGW (White Girl Wasted) and within minutes an ambulance arrived.

Many of you have probably heard assorted tales of interactions between athletes and medical personnel. When I'd imaged these stories they were always lighthearted in nature....

EMT: "I can't get a pulse over here!"
Patient: "Gotcha! I'm a distance runner, you see. My naturally low pulse rate is hilariously confusing."
EMT: "You rascal!"
Patient: "Now put that gurney away, drinks are on me!"

The reality of it wasn't nearly so charming. Turns out, unless you're about to step onto an Olympic podium, doctors are hesitant to believe that it's exercise and not, say, opium causing your reduced pulse rate. And oh by the way all their machines are pre-set to beep if it drops below 50 so don't expect to get any sleep during your seven-hour wait.  

So me and my little brother — who deserves a very special shout-out here, for not only soldiering through a seven-hour ER wait, and being the first to call 911 following my face plant in the bar, but for also finding a way to put the other patrons at ease as I was hoisted onto a gurney in the middle of their shrimp tempura roll by joking, "She always finds a way to get out of paying the tab, am I right folks? This guy knows." — passed the time by Googling the potential diseases I could be dying from.

When I was finally discharged it was at 4:30am, against medical advice, and with the discovery of an inverted T-wave on my EKG. What actually happened is still kinda a question mark.

But don't feel too bad for me, it just meant that my trip to Paris included a lot more cheese and wine and a lot less running 26.2 miles, which is, apparently, how most normal people travel overseas. It was the most beautiful, humbling, amazing trip I've ever taken. It's how I'll always remember Paris, except for the parts when we had too much wine.

"This is the way of peace: Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love." ~Peace Pilgrim

Boring Work Days and Me: 5 Things I've Learned Before 5:00pm - #WorldAnimalDay

1) More than a third of Major League baseball pitchers are left-handers, about three times the average among the general population.
2) Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making victims doubt their own memory, perception, and sanity.
3) The duck-billed platypus a semi aquatic egg-laying mammal indigenous to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. It is the only egg-laying mammal known to man and some of its more cuddly features include venous foot spurs and double cone eyes which it uses to see into your soul. But this terrifying creature can do more than simply be a crime against nature: "We have a case for you detective!" 

4) The rock band AC/DC's name is a tribute to the rivalry between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. 

5) James Jesus Angleton, the left handed counterintelligence chief at the CIA from 1954 to 1975, suffered from crippling paranoia. 

But he like, these other unheeded paranoiacs, turned out to be right in the end. Read more and you'll see, you'll all see.

Southpaw

Approximately 13% of the world's population are southpaws. We don't talk about in front of strangers but my own father leans to the left. We'll never know the true percent of lefties because many were forced to change handedness during childhood by teachers, parents, or the Aryan Society for Right Handed World Domination (you didn't hear it from me).

While historically, we enjoy shunning and/or ridiculing minorities, according to Chris McManus this tiny percentage has produced an above-average quota of high achievers.

The magnitude of famous lefties is truly outstanding considering there's no explanation for why people are left handed.

Southpaw

Approximately 13% of the world's population are southpaws. We don't talk about in front of strangers but my own father leans to the left. We'll never know the true percent of lefties because many were forced to change handedness during childhood by teachers, parents, or the Aryan Society for Right Handed World Domination (you didn't hear it from me).

While historically, we enjoy shunning and/or ridiculing minorities, according to Chris McManus this tiny percentage has produced an above-average quota of high achievers.

The magnitude of famous lefties is truly outstanding considering there's no explanation for why people are left handed.

If The Shoe Fits

Walt Disney is renowned for many things. His kingdom of animated wonders, a legacy of creative genius, the way he'd put on the Mickey Mouse suit and insist on being called “The Commodore”... But one thing he can never take credit for is a realistic representation of his Disney Princesses.

And despite recent efforts to portray more modern and diverse heroines, the Disney Princess line-up still largely resembles Thursday night at a Tallahassee strip club.

Criticism that Disney heroines represent an exaggerated and unrealistic physical standard of beauty is well deserved considering these films are designed for an audience of 5 to 10 year olds. Who exactly are the pouting lips, doe eyes, and heaving bosoms designed to appeal to?

I like to think I'll raise my children in the sort of open-minded, accepting household where we appreciated all bodies like pow, animated and otherwise. But it does it over simplify women's role in society and representation throughout history to believe that heavier, plainer Disney Princesses are some magic bullet that liberates us from years of patriarchal oppression?

It's a difficult issue to address when you're up against an intimidating group of Disney Princesses all in hot pursuit of their Happily Ever After (all all who strangely resemble the Mean Girls from my High School).

I'm genuinely glad to see Disney's outdated stereotypes modernized, but I'd hate to see one set of restrictive standards replaced by another. I don't think our ultimate end game is necessary some elaborately constructed Disney role model giving their stamp of approval on wearing glasses, liking books, or playing sports. Instead we should foster a society in which young women can be their own role models.   

Cinderella herself said it best:

Boring Work Days and Me: 5 Things I've Learned Before 5:00pm - 4th of July Edition

1) Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on July 4, 1826. James Monroe also died on July 4, but in 1831.
2) Auto club AAA estimates that 41.9 million Americans will travel over the July 4th holiday, the most in eight years.

3) Calvin Coolidge was born on July 4, 1872. He also has the distinction of being the Nationals' latest Racing President.

4) The 4th of July by the numbers:

• 14,000 — number of firework displays across the nation each year
• 150 million — number of hot dogs eaten by Americans 
• 9 — number of times I will drunk-dial my ex before I black out

5) This amazing firework display is from the 2012 Let Freedom Sing Fireworks Show in Nashville, Tennessee. After the 2:05 mark, you'll feel like a five-year old again.

Happy Fourth!

Palm Pilot

I got a palm reading the other day. I could say it was on a total whim, or that I don't really believe in that stuff, or that no baby I've never tried it before but with right guy I might be open to it, but that wouldn't be true. 

So this palm reading was not, in fact, my first foray into the occultic realm. Between palm readings, tarot cards, and aura cleanings I've spend a handful of dollars hoping for a glimpse into what my romantic future might hold. And while my little brother reminds me that this money could be better spent on pretty much anything besides crack, my most recent palm reader had an insight for me that I'd never heard before. She told me I've already met my soulmate.

There wasn't a need to flip through my mental Rolodex of exes, because everyone has "the one that got away." Not got away due to some kind of epic relationship fall out, or his arraignment hearing, or because he finally found the key to my sex dungeon, but got away because something, something small and nameless, in the relationship didn't quite work out.

Ladies and gentleman I'd like to present my potential lost soulmate:

Yeah, I know, you can't tell me anything I haven't already told myself each time I renew my Match subscription. 

Okay Universe, I get it. He's very handsome. 

We were college sweethearts. He never hogged the covers and let me dance on his toes. He taught me how to how to change a timing belt and I encouraged him to run his first 5K. I made him laugh and he fielded my crazy like Joe DiMaggio. 

But it didn't work out. And looking back there wasn't anything we faced that was so insurmountable it couldn't have been overcome on our path to soulmatedom... Why do so many modern relationships end this way; with the parties citing vague and unsubstantial reasons like "things getting too serious", "timing", or "escaping from your sex dungeon"?  

So maybe he isn't my lost soulmate. Maybe you can't just lose a soulmate like a misplaced sweatshirt that turns up years later in a Goodwill Lost and Found. Maybe it's sharing our lives that's more important than our souls. After all, if Merriam-Webster doesn't recognize soulmates, I maintain there's no reason for the rest of us to. Except when dealing with angry ex-sex. Obviously.

Boring Work Days and Me: 5 Things I've Learned Before 5:00pm - Sports Edition

1) This clip comes to you straight from my home town where minor league manager for the Asheville Tourist, Joe Mikulik otherwise known as "Who?", and "that assshole" loses his damn mind over a call and a game for no other reason than to show his butt and amuse you good folks. Enjoy:

2) Okay, so maybe I'm partial to my alma mater but after the below video the next person to destroy a basketball athletic program this badly was Jerry Sandusky.

3) Considered by most to be the greatest athlete of all time, his most famous commercial is titled "Failure."

4) The Play or The Play to Beat the Band, refers to a last-second kickoff return during a college football game between is recognized as one of the most memorable plays in college football history and among the most memorable in American sports. 

Members of the Stanford Band had come onto the field midway through the return, believing that the game was over, which added to the ensuing confusion and folklore. Cal announcer Joe Starkey of KGO-AM 810 radio called the game. The following is a transcript of his famous call:

AND THE BEARS! THE BEARS HAVE WON! The Bears have won! Oh, my God! The most amazing, sensational, dramatic, heart-rending... exciting, thrilling finish in the history of college football!

5) If you haven't heard of The Miracle on Ice than your heart is probably made of it. A group of rag tag American hockey players rallied to win Gold over the Russians, who play the villains in nine out of ten Olympic movies. Team USA's performance eked out a slim 4-3 lead which they clung to for the final 10 minutes. But it was Sportscaster Al Michaels, who was calling the game on ABC, who delivered his famous call:

"11 seconds, you've got 10 seconds, the countdown going on right now! Morrow, up to Silk. Five seconds left in the game. Do you believe in miracles?! YES!!!