It's Not a Tumor

Afternoon, minions.
Sorry about the absence. My 47 year old ass was on a cardiac floor for a couple of days last week. Final diagnosis was "chest pain"... Really? Where the hell is House when you need him. It was odd being a patient in the hospital for which i work. Really weird. I kept wanting to chart my I&O stuff and couldn't quite relax.
Anyway, chest pain with sweating, dizziness and shortness of breath, are all bad. I was "throwing PVCs" like there was no tomorrow. Every time the doc said that, I kept picturing plumbing pipes flying around. Lying still helped, but it was several hours before it stopped and my EKG and blood pressure were back to normal (which for me is 100 or less over 70 or less). Normal is such a sliding scale.
Upon my return to work, one of my coworkers said it was probably gas. Every symptom, including bad EKG was confirmed as "yep, gas." Yeah, idiot, i am sure that was what it was. I mean, the docs always admit people for that... At least my troponin stayed normal and my heart finally got its groove back on without any damage happening. V fib would have sucked.
Guess i should work on that whole stress management thing...
Without losing my angst or sarcasm, of course.
So, minions, get outside and do absolutely nothing for a while. Without contemplating what will pile up to be done in the meantime. You definitely never ever want to share a room with me or come to my psych floor. Ever. Preventing this should be your top priority.

Final thoughts:

W has a library? How the .... I mean, really? Will it include gems like "childrens can learn"?

Oh, and, dear conspiracy theorists,
Sometimes impulsive zealots are just impulsive zealots. Every family tree has a branch of nuts and from what the mom said, these two came from hearty stock...
But, it was fun to speculate in the meantime.

Note to Self

Never try to go off your antidepressant the week someone on the unit listens to that voice in his head and tries to kill a visitor with a colored pencil (wonder which color... was red after). Hindsight is never available and usually would have been really useful. The bombings and explosions were tragic. This was traumatic. And resulted in me working on the adolescent psych floor so all available males could work on adult psych. Bad as that was, kids still scare me more... Especially those kids...
I was already crying at the drop of a hat and pissed off way too easily before that happened, leading me to think that maybe i still needed it (i had tapered really slowly, so that wasn't it) before this happened.
Anyway, note to self: never do that again.

Boston in perspective

And today let me just say that the US is not the only country on the planet, nor do we suffer more, better, or more importantly, than any other country. 
People died in Boston. Sad. Tragic.
People will have theories and talk about it, but in the end, it was not the only news of the day.
Elsewhere, there was a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Iran that affected neighboring countries as well, Syria probably used chemical weapons on its citizens, bombs exploded in Iraq, and senseless violence and wars continued on six of seven continents. Not sure about Antarctica... I'm thinking it's still too cold for war there.
People everywhere are just living their lives, trying to find happiness and eek out a living on this rock we call home. Idiots everywhere devalue these lives in the mistaken ideology of violent protest and uprising. Dehumanization and depersonalization are rampant. It's all quite psychotic, really. Looking at a person who is not fundamentally different from oneself and being unable to see that is, after all, psychotic. There are no enemies or targets, only other living beings who also just want to be loved, heard, valued, appreciated, and allowed to live their lives.
People have expressed all kinds of sympathy for the people killed and injured in Boston and those affected by the shootings in Newtown and Aurora. Let's expand our reaction and compassion to those affected by the earthquake in Iran, the chemical weapons in the Syrian war, the bombings that continue everyday in Iraq and/or other middle eastern countries, and all the other terrible acts endured by our fellow humans. Let's start there and work outward.

tea party, paranoid schiz version

Ok, so you know i have to talk about Boston, cuz, well, i really like Boston (city and band, actually). I also run (5k mostly) when my stupid body lets me. First, yes, very tragic. I cried. It was absolutely uncalled for and horrifying. It still is horrifying, as the survivors continue to fight for their lives and sanity. PTSD is not to be taken lightly. I have it. I know. Every day it sucks. Every day i fight it. Most days i still win. The scars on my bones and the pain in my back and pelvis remind me. Everything does. So, the following is not meant to in any way diminish any of the actions of those who rushed in or those who are forever changed.
That said, i work with schizophrenics who are paranoid and i did my thesis on conspiracy and complicity in fiction. Long story. That i stretched for 90 pages. So, my random access brain hit on the following points and came up with a little something. In Massachusetts, today is not tax day. It is Patriots Day. The race, especially mile 26, was dedicated to the Newtown Families. The lobbyists don't want gun control. The revolution started in Boston (more or less, depending on who you talk to-near there anyway). I like tea.
Some of those things mean nothing. Maybe all of them do, but the true conspiracy nuts will appreciate the following theory, which i am sure is totally fictitious. Patriots like guns. Newtown families and supporters don't. What better way to prove that guns are not the Big Thing to worry about than a good old Patriotic protest involving anything that isn't a gun. And for fun, let's throw an immigrant of possible middle eastern descent into the mix (or at least tell Fox News that and watch them run with that). Suddenly, Americans need guns to protect ourselves on our own soil. Big guns. Many-bulleted guns. So, some suit somewhere says, let's get some idiots drunk and sell them on the idea. Then just deny everything. Think about it. Distraction, bread and circuses (again), call it what you want. Suddenly, the country shifts its attention to something new. Bigger. Less likely to impact gun manufacturers adversely.
And that was what i came up with while raking the lawn. I watch too much tv, maybe, but it does have a certain jfk quality to it. And, if you throw in the fire that could have been designed to reduce the number of first responders available at the bomb scenes, the dance starts to look almost like a Hollywood rendering of today.
This is not what happened i am sure. It wasn't organized or sophisticated enough for that. But, still, if any of you wondered about any of this, even for a moment, it speaks volumes about how much we actually trust the powers that be.
And that is perhaps the point of my sojourn into madness today.
What still gives me hope are the runners who ran into harm's way to help bystanders, the bystanders who helped each other and all the other everyday heroes who see life as precious and worth saving. I really wish that all people saw life from this perspective and learned that non-violence is the only way. Please try to spread the non-violence and the respect for life that i know we all possess somewhere in our minds and hearts. This is not a time for anger or vengeance. That is what got us here. Retribution will solve nothing. It will change nothing.

Equinox Equilibration

Ah, spring. The Feds have repaid my loan to them. They kept the interest of course. Why am i grateful as if it weren't my money to start with? The state has not been so forthcoming. I am pissed about that because it is my money to start with. More entitled than third generation welfare recipients. I could rant, but don't need homeland sodomy to have more reasons to poke around or crawl further in. Two thoughts occur, however. I shall number them for easy reference in case observations are criminalized. (1) If i did my job as poorly and corruptly as the government does, i would be living in a tent in the woods, eating what i could grow, scavenge or trap. I definitely wouldn't get a raise, pension or health benefits. Or indoor plumbing. Perhaps they shouldn't either.  (2) Since this government is of, by and for the people, and does not function for anyone who can't pay it off, then perhaps it is no longer our government at all. Perhaps it is time for a change. They use social issues and fear to distract us from the fact that it is not their job to legislate or micro-manage our lives. They then hope no one notices they are not doing their jobs except when it suits them and the lobbyists and corporations who got them their jobs and pull all the strings. They can't pass a budget in years, which is how they know how much revenue they need, but they can vilify the mentally ill and discuss gun violence. Buy more crap to keep the economy going and you so in debt or close to the edge that you don't have time to notice the shaft up your butt or the fact that you have no power to remove it. Occupy was fun, but lacked cohesion and the sort of focus and money needed to overthrow or really change anything.
That should do it. I suppose i'll need lubricant for the flags i may have just raised. I am not saying the militias and crazies should do anything. I am saying that the social contract is broken and so is our ability to do jack about it. And it is that point that i find most annoying. Why do they even ask us to vote if the lobbyists are running the show anyway? It really doesn't matter who we elect. Think about it. But then realize that that is all you can do. By design.
The rest is just bread and circuses.