Sickness

When i was a child I used to get very sick at least once a year. I mean sick as in 104 temp and convulsions on the floor ill. This continued up until I was in my low twenties then seemed to stop. It's actually happened twice since I've been with FW and scared her enough that every time I get a little sick she starts walking around holding the phone a squirt bottle and periodically checking my eyes for glazing.
The first time around FW was the worst, it was the first time I'd been ill around her and she unfortunately was not prepared for a man who doesn't like being babied or fussed over when he's sick. I was just plain mean, she informed me later. I curled up in a ball under a blanket and everytime she came near me I growled like an injured dog. When My fever started raging she started really worrying because I was half asleep and was yelling random things and when she tried to check on me I patted her cheek smiled at her and called her a "sweet child"
She called my mother first (the nurse) which is probably good, because she was thinking of calling the paramedics, that might have been overkill. My mother told her I needed to be in a lukewarm shower, not cold but cooler than me until I calmed down and began to act rationally, and my eyes no longer looked glazed or hazy.
Bless my mother for that one, little FW at 120lbs was supposed to drag my 250 into the shower? So she started gently and I rolled over and ignored her except for my nonsense I was spouting pretty steadily. She tried nagging, begging yelling, but I wasn't budging and I guess my fever was getting worse. I sat up suddenly on the bed a death grip on the sheets swaying and trying not to fall off. I was shouting about the legs falling off the bed and she called my mother again. This time mother could hear my shouts and she started to worry, as a child she'd always had my dad or brothers wrestle me into the shower if I got bad enough. She told FW to get some cold water and bath my head with it until she could bet me to get up and into the bathroom. FW didn't think of a washcloth or a sponge, nope my littel ray of sunshine got a spraybottle filled it full of crushed ice and water and started spraying me in the face. I actually quieted after some spluttering and gasping, she had breached the haze of the fever and I did get up and stand in the shower for quite a while trying not to fall over as she snuck in and gradually shut off the hot water.
The second time i got ill like that she didn't wait for full on nonsensical rantings when I was lying in bed half asleep feverish and mumbling hse started squirting me in the face again with that damn spray bottle. She wouldn't stop until I got up and took a shower. So aside from being terrified at the thought of getting sick, every time I don't feel well Fw makes me look at her every time she passes by me and checks my eyes for glaziness. (ha)
Yesterday at about 10 I left work feeling a bit ill and getting worse. When she came home and found me there she started the eye thing again. i was in no mood so I locked myself in the bedroom and fell asleep. About two hours later she picked the lock came in and shook me gently trying to feel my forehead to see how feverish I was ( I don't think I was, thank you) She said "You feel kind of hot." I was still mostly asleep and maybe a little out of it because I kind of jumped out of bed, in a monster little temper tantrum, stomped over to the bathroom muttering curses and got in the shower. When I got out I was feeling very clear headed and went into the living room. FW sitting there watching me so I say "Happy now?" I was still a little mad. She just started laughing, tears rolling down her face laughing, slapping the table with one hand holding her stomach in the other gales of laughter. What was so funny? Turns out she had come into the bedroom to tell me my cousin was on the phone and I had jumped up muttering about squirtguns and sleeping and stormed into the bathroom slammed the door and then proceeded to spend over an hour sleeping in the shower leaning against the wall with almost completely cold water running. Damn Alka seltser cold packs quite a wallop.

self inflicted head wounds continued

When I was 15ish i did it again. We were in the converted basement of my Buddy R, the basement had an average height ceiling with large wood beams every 6-8 feet. For some reason R and E were walking side by side, and since I'm a hyperactive freak I ran up behind them leapt at them putting a hand on each of their shoulders and tried to vault between them. My head hit the beam squarely with a loud thwock and I crumbled to the floor in a puddle. I was not knocked out but my head was ringing so much I couldn't hear them laughing at me for quite some time.
Before then When I was in fourth grade I fell out of a jungle gym flat on my back the back of my head bounced off the ground hard enough I bit through part of my tongue.

Self inflicted head wounds.

When I was in 6th grade about 10 or 11 my first self inflicted head wound came from a sod cutter. This is a half moon shaped blade at the end of a long handle. One afternoon after too many kung fu movies at my buddy's house I took the sod cutter which to me resembled one of the shaolin great bladed spears. I was doing ok spinning it around slowly, My buddy was waving a pair of bamboo sticks around like swords. I got faster an faster and of course eventually forgot one end was bladed. As I spun it around attempting to spin it from in front of me to over my head I felt a tremendous clunk. I shook my head a little then laughed, my buddy looked at me smiled then his face dropped into what can only be described as terror. He said I looked normal then a line across the side of my head started oozing blood. I reached up and patted my head and my hand came away dripping blood, as I leaned forward the blood rolled down my face and dripped off. I'm not scared of blood, but I was definitely beginning to feel a little woozy as more and more seemed to pour out over my hands. My buddy helped me get my hands in position to hold the cut closed and we walked the 3 blocks back to my house, trying to think of a way to explain this to my mother (the nurse) without getting my ass beat for being stupid. My mother went a little whiter than usual at seeing me injured, but otherwise handled it really well. She got my pal to tell her the truth (wus) and then just looked at me. "You are lucky you didn't cut your ear off." That was all she said. My dad later said "If you're going to be stupid aim lower and cut your whole head off next time, it will hurt less."It didn't seem that bad after I got cleaned up, the cut was about 3 inches long an almost perfect straight line 1/2 inch above my ear. I didn't go in for stitches ,but I did get the side of my head shaved and 4 butterfly bandages to hold my scalp together. The second I was 13 and just starting to grow my hair out and start smoking. On Halloween evening after a few meager attempts to get some free candy my friend and I realized we were too old for that kind of fun. My costume consisted of my leather, a wooden bat and my hair carved into some 1950's do with crisco. It wasn't really anything, I just wanted to wear my leather, and figured with a cool hairstyle I would be seen as having a costume. I had the bat because older boys in the neighborhood liked to jump me, beat the hell out of me, so once I started high school I never went out at night without my bat or my bronze tipped walking stick. We were walking the neighborhood and came upon a local boy who began mouthing off a little, after the verbal sparring boys have so much fun with he grabbed a rock and threw it at me. I lunged towards him but he was a fast runner and took off I just missed grabbing him. If I'd caught him It probably wouldn't have been that bad, we were just screwing around and he was kind of a friend. I forgot of course that I was holding a bat and as I pumped my arms trying to catch up I rammed the end of the bat into my right eye socket. I saw a white flash and left my feet. When I opened my remaining eye, my friend was standing over me looking concerned then laughing as I tried to sit up and kept falling back over. I was so dizzy from the massive blow I had struck myself the kid I was chasing had to come back and help my friend carry me home.

The Picture of Dorian Grey, Oscar Wilde

I knew who he was, knew the story (sort-of) had the general idea even before league of extraordinary gentleman came out, but today I actually took the time to read it. Well technically I stole the time toread it since that's what I spent the last 2 hours or so doing at work. I love project gutenberg !!
I liked the story itself, it's a devilish idea dealing with all the possible follies of youth and the physical impact moral degradation can stamp onto your features. After a thorough examination of myself in the bathroom mirror compared to the mental picture I have of my face, I can see some signs of my past. The heaviness of my face attests to excesses in booze or food. A few scars and a slightly crooked nose do map out sordid parts of my life so far, but any of these could have been received innocently. Then again I probably would not have got the same scars if I only engaged in innocent behaviors. So all in all i'm probably still too young to really see the stamp my cynicism, or hypocrisy, or contempt has left on my face I wonder if it will show.
Just thinking.

Ok I'm better now.

I didn't have to kill anybody to feel better, bummer. I think I'll do it anyway. I actually got a cup of earl grey tea and now I feel scads better. Right bosh! and all that. harrumph harraumph..
Then again maybe I was just a little caffiene deprived, or else some chemical in the Bergamot oil(sp?) has rebalanced my see-saw.
I've decided to bite the bullet and start working out in the gym at work, it's free it's here and if I wait for everyone to go home at least all the office people I should be able to get a decent workout. They have a treadmill and a skiing machine along with the weight lifting machine (which probably has some name but I don't know it) I use free weights at home, but I need to explore doing some more aerobic style exercises.
FW says I should drink less after working out (seriously what does that woman have against my martini(s)?)
Why does she think I'm working out? to get in shape to pick up girls? no, she'd probably slice me open in my sleep, I exercise so I can drink more without developing what my family likes to call the "extreme fatness" like huge uncle bernard and aunt loveless the cow impersonator.. Not real names, not even real people. We're just farm people, we eat big, work hard, have big muscles and read scripture every night. Well that's what all mly ancestors did until my mothers generation, first ones to ever move off the farm, explore the cities and offices. What do you think was the first thing they did off the ranch?? Blew up like sexdolls on a gas station air pump..
Unfortunately for older brother who works at a bank, has two kids and hates exercise he will probably never recover, my littlest brother has the same problem, my other brother and me bounce back and forth. Lucky for him he loves lifting weights, he was a football player, now he's a chef and doesn't like to eat just likes to taste everything a lot then skips the meal. I have a few run on sentences, but I don't care. Caffiene seems to be the cure..

Waaah! I'm a big whiny baby today..

I fell totally in hate with my day today. It's all my horoscopes fault. It told me it's ok to take money from savings to buy something that will last, but I don't have any savings, so whatever way cool thing I was supposed to be able to get that would last forever is out of my reach and my stupid horoscope had to taunt me.
FW is going back to work, that's really good. I worry about her mother though, so far FW has been at her house almost every day doing something for her, and if we don't go over often enough her mother actually will mess up her own television so cable won't come in?? Does this really happen? She's so technically illiterate she can't even figure out what the problem is and just randomly pushes buttons without keeping any sense of what buttons she pushes until I go over to put her TV back on the right channel.
I know she does it on purpose too, but she plays all vague when we go over there. She's barely 70 but acts like she's 90, maybe the three packs of cigarettes a day, maybe she has alzheimers. So when FW goes back to work, will I have to go over there more often, or less? Her mother talked to FW's sister and told her she had no water in her bathroom??? Then she said i worked on her shower and she couldn't use it. her sister called us, we go over there
"What did you say to her?"
"Oh I just meant while you were working on it I couldn't use it." I worked on it for like 5 minutes, i just replaced the shower head with one of those hand held showers. I need more money so we can get someone to watch her or something. Fw's terrified she's getting alzheimers, I don't know what to think. I think I need to go kill someone in my story tonight, that always perks me up..

Less than 10 years ago I used to teach karate in a small school, I was one of several black belt applicants that worked at the school teaching beginning and amatuer students. Our Sensei had made it a requirement ofd receiving you black belt, and even though in other schools it was not a requirement, the extra work just encouraged us to press on. We were paid on an extremely loose pay schedule that pretty much dwelt on the whim of the sensei, sometimes extremely generous.
Anyway when I was 24ish the problem I have with my back flared up again and I was forced to go under the knife. After a long recovery i never went back to teaching, and sadly never received my black belt. This past weekend my cousin asked me to teach his son. His son used to have lessons in town, but it's too expensive for him to continue, and seeing as how we're family I'll probably go ahead and do it. I'm not in bad shape compared to then though I do have more severe flexibility problems. when I taught almost all my exercise was aerobic, anearobic, whatever, typical gym exercise for fighters, lots of running, jumproping pushups sit ups, now it's all strength and weight training, trying to compensate for the weakness I'll always have in my stomach and lower back from the repeated surgeries.
The last few days I've put myself through some of the exercises I used to do daily and have come to the conclusion that I am way out of shape. It's weird I quit smoking, I lift weights regularly, but i guess neither is enough to battle the weekend beers. So now I thought I'd start running again, after all I used to run a mile at the start of every class i taught which sometime would equal 3-4 miles a day between lessons. Unfortunately yesterday it was 3-5 degrees, today I woke up -5, so I'm missing AZ like mad, mostly because I'm a big fat wus.

What's grosser than gross?

Standing at a urinal and having a ginormously fat guy come stand next to you. (That's not the gross part yet.)
First off he's fat like someone stuffed a sofa cushion in the front of his shirt, all front body mass. Just look at him and you can picture a family sized tub of chip-dip resting snugly on the swell of his stomach wedged between his man-boobs. (still not gross yet)
He starts panting and making this grunting noise as he tries to hunch over to get to his zipper. He sounds like 5 guys in a porno film and his zipper hasn't even made a sound yet. I'm praying to my own bladder to hurry up before anything else happens but unfortunately I drank 4 22 oz coffees and 2 diet pepsi and I'm stuck here for the long haul (as soon as I thought it I had to write it).
Finally his zipper goes scccrrrtcchcc and after some more contortions he stands up a little bit and he's breathing heavy like he ran a marathon or his johnson weighs like 500 pounds. (still not the gross part yet)
He starts pissing and all I hear is splatter splatter, and I jump back just in time because fat dude is peeing straight down and it's hitting the ground between his feet and spraying all over his shoes pants and the floor.
I almost wish my stomach were a little weaker so I could have commented in the bathroom by hurling on him, but alas I did not. I am supremely glad nothing appears to have touched me, I hope he's embarrassed as a teenager getting caught wacking off to the sears catalog.

Sleeping

I woke up at 3:30 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep. How messed up. I went to bed at 11 you'd think I'd be able to sleep longer than that. I know what it was too, the two martinis I had last night wore off at exactly 3:30 this morning, and without the effect of alcohol my body was unable to sleep. I'm not really an insomniac because I do sleep every night usually for 4 to 6 hours. If I take a benadryl I can sleep almost 8 hours before my back hurts enough to wake me up.
I dreamed I was standing in front of a policeman on a horse, I was kind of petting the horse- he kept nipping at my hand, but really gently. Then the cop turn away and the horse leaned over and bit me right over my ribs slightly behind my arm. it wouldn't let go and everytime I tried to get the cop's attention I got tears in my eyes and couldn't speak from the pain..

Rediscovering Animal Crackers

Just got a bag of Animal crackers from the vending machine, and surprisingly I actually feel happier sitting here crunching on them. I took out all the broken pieces and ate them first, then lined up all the unbroken ones in a row and ate the backwards facing ones next, we'll have none of that kind of behavior in my crackers, thank you. In grade school (fifth grade) I was in a musical play called animal crackers. I have no idea what it was about, but I was a rabbit without a speaking part. I did sing several solo songs which I hope justified all the singing and music lessons my dad paid for in forth to ninth grade before I started smoking and ended any chance of an opera career. My mother thought it was adorable, her friends thought it was adorable, my friends laughed at me. My bullies beat the crap out of me. Maybe that's why I stopped eating animal crackers. Stupid crackers. Now I almost don't feel like eating them. But I'm smiling when I say that and I giggle a little as I crunch through the head of a rabbit making grrr noises.

"ooooh!"

I got my home CPU set up, it's old and slow and I don't have the internet, but finally I can write outside of work. I'm almost useless with a pen an pencil anymore. They're obsolete. I have the technology to write stronger faster.. Or maybe I can finally read what I'm writing. I can write really legibly but only if I print, if I write in script I can't even read it. It's too slow too, once I get onn a roll I can type for hours without pause, but when I write by hand my hand slows me down too much I start having to back up the words in my head to let my pen catch up. It's one of the most frustrating feelings to be rolling on a good idea and have to pause, then try to start again.
Last night I was typing up part 2 to chapter 7 of "This Guy" and FW came up behind me. I don't think she tried to sneak up on me, but she came up behind me and kissed me on the neck. I jumped and yelled, knocking my chair over backwards as I bashed my thighs into the desk, then fell backwards over the chair that was lying behind me, knocked my head against the wall, thankfully not that hard.
FW stood over me her hand halfway to her mouth saying "Ooh." her eyes wide. Then a brief pause before, "Are you on drugs?" she said that completely straight faced. She offered to help me stand up but I waved her away.
"I'm just going to stay here. I'm fine."
She shook her head and went back in the kitchen. Can you guess what I heard next?
"Hee hee snort hee ha ha ha ha."

Nicknames

Thanks Johnnie- for a little early morning inspiration. Beats actually doing some work.
My nickname is "Double A".
When FW and I moved up to WI she took me around and introduced me to all her old friends, most of which are bikers, or hang with bikers, or want to be bikers, or hate bikers and hang out with bikers so they have someone to fight when they get drunk. This guy she knew "S" was a bartender at all the biker bars, meaning he worked each one a week or two got fired, quit, stopped showing up, or whatever spent a few weeks barhopping then would start at the next bar. There's plenty of bars around here for that to work pretty much forever. FW tried to warn me he has a strong personality, and might tease me, or try to ride me a little. He's probably a foot shorter than me, has a large beer belly bushy black beard long hair looks like a pirate carrying a barrel. So the first night I met him he starts, trying to get between me and FW, lots of winking between them, testing my temper. I slid down the bar a space or two to give them room. Poor FW started to feel a little unloved, gave me a glare for not standing up to him, but I just smiled. So S starts talking a little smack, see FW had told him I have a temper sometimes and to take it easy on me (silly woman trying to get me killed). I was pretty patient for a while, then ordered him and me a shot of jack Daniels. I slid one over to him
"What's that for?"
"So when I beat the hell out of you, you can say you were drunk and I got lucky."
So now we're standing chest to chest glaring at each other, FW pleading with me and him not to fight.So S grabs me by both sides of my head pulls me forward and blows a raspberry on my cheek!! I'm surprised as hell, my face is red, everyone is laughing. FW's trying not to but failing. So I grab S and sort of push / throw him backwards into the wall slap my hand over his mouth and bend him over backwards kissing the back of my hand making horrible horrible slobbery noises. When I let him up his face is red and we walk back to the bar. FW is just wide eyed- I think she thought I really kissed him. The bartender is laughing hard, he could see what I'd done.
S says "What the hell man?"
"Sorry it's the beard, got me all excited."
"Damn I thought that was a double a battery in your pocket."