Friday, October 27, 2006

oh fuck off

Dear Muslim cleric
If you are so fucked up you cannot see a women's face or body without immediately beating that women and raping her maybe you should kill yourself. I recommend that all Muslim men who believe that women must be fully covered because they, Muslim men will immediately rape them should commit mass suicide.
Let us put the blame squarely where it belongs . If you are a man that has no self control, If you are a man so full of evil, vile thoughts of violence and rape we don't need you. It is called thinning the herd.
Mental defects like rapists need to be removed from the world , men who literally cannot stand the sight of any uncovered women's face without rape coming first to mind are obviously mental degenerates, products of inbreeding , malnutrition and insanity.
I would think their own families should be responsible for keeping these abominations locked up at home but if they fail the normal response to such a maniac should be arrest and execution. These men are worse than rabid dogs..slobbering madly, insanity written across their face attacking women all over the world because they caught sight of that women's face.

Women are not meat and men are not cats. Well real men are not cats, if you insist that Muslim men are nothing more than animals with no self control or morals who am I to disagree with you? But the Muslim men I know, my friends maybe aren't good Muslims, maybe they aren't Muslims at all because they are nurses, responsible for bathing all kinds of women's uncovered bodies and guess what? They feel not even a tiny urge to rape.
I guess they aren't the "right" kind of Muslim for you you depraved asshole.

I also cannot believe your punishment for telling your Muslim followers that it is perfectly wonderful for Muslims to gang rape Australian girls is a three month paid vacation.
I think your punishment should be three months tied to a chair while those poor girls get to kick you in the nuts whenever their urge strikes. I mean they cannot help it right? The site of some douchebag wearing a little white Santa hat causes them to lose complete self control...Who is the cat now?
You think it is just fine to rape uncovered women? Well I think it's just fine to kick Muslim men wearing little white and red Santa hats in the nuts. Keep your eyes open there asshole.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

tis the season

For spreading pestilence or the flu. Hack, cough, spit, sneeze. Thanks to all you kind people who refuse to stay home when you are sick, never wash your hands and spread germs far and wide.

So, what is this I hear about Patrick Dempsey and Isaiah Washington having a little choke fest?
Did Isaiah really call TR a faggot bitch for being late to the set? Did Isaiah really put Dempsey in a choke hold when Dempsey got pissed off?
Hee.....I thought I worked in a dysfunctional workplace. No one at my work has yet to beat anyone else up. They have threatened it plenty of times but to do it? We haven't quite got there yet.

It must be so much fun to go to work on Greys Anatomy now and TR must be just thrilled to be publicly outed like this.
Hope his family knew he was gay or this might be quite a shock.
Honestly if this is true I would fire Isaiah. I mean C'mon you have to have some standards even if it is Hollywood.
If he gets that crazy about someone being late he's liable to start shooting people for calling him a talentless homophobe.
Sometimes being a really intense guy can be cool, other times it is just creepy..this guy hit creepy in a big way.
I was kind of tired of the show anyway..bye bye Greys Anatomy, congratulations on your self destruction.

Friday, October 20, 2006

bereft

I have no instincts to rely on when my family is in crisis . I am so offended when one of my tribe is afflicted with a fatal disease I am rendered speechless, motionless. I can only offer up I love you.
I used to think in terms of fairness and unfairness. I wanted to believe that bad people got karmically punished somehow. That cancer and heart disease and horrific car crashes were reserved for people who had done something wrong.
Now I know these terrible things are reserved for kind people. People that have done nothing wrong. They are pleasantly living their lives being quietly happy and then they get struck down without warning.
Evil people get rich and drive nice cars and travel to beautiful places eating the best food and having banal sex with supermodels. They commit crimes against people, property and the environment, greedily screwing everyone and anything to make another buck to add to their stack. These people die of Alzheimers at the age of ninety five surrounded by an army of medical staff and a thrilled supermodel.
The kind people die in a ward with their family hitting the call bell over and over.

I don't believe in God. I know that no God would allow this. I believe that at one time there may have been a God but he has wandered off bored with it all.
Free will explains nothing. Did God gave free will so we could die in agony of bone cancer? Did someone say "well I have free will so I will choose to die in unrelieved agony" ??? What free choice was involved here?
I think it's all bull. Written by powerless men afraid of the dark. Foisted upon people to corral and control them.
I look at believers and cringe. Must I keep my mouth shut? It will be better to not say anything, maybe that belief gives them comfort in their final hours and my opinion is just angry ramblings that will make a painful moment worse. I will shut up.
If they need to hold on to a God that would allow this travesty that is their right. I hate this God though.

On a side note why are so many people pissed off about Madonna adopting that baby? So what if she lined them up like a litter of puppies? So what if she bypassed the laws? That kid has hit the lottery. He is escaping an orphanage and a family that can't care for him.
Madonna's other two kids look okay, they don't look rabid or anything so what the hell..his father is okay with the adoption so who the hell are we to bitch?
I did laugh when the kids uncle wanted to be "involved" with the kids life, in England ofcourse heh.. smart move to get on the gravy train so quickly.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

taking a break

I have decided to stop thinking about the state of the world for a little while. It's cowardice and yes, I have found my patch of sand and my head is stuck right in it. I don't want to know about North Korea and nuclear weapons. I cannot hear about one more car bombing. I get that most people have become numb to it all but it's the opposite for me. I get more sensitive every time.
So, for right now I am taking a break. The world is in flames and honestly there is nothing I can do or say or write that will change the functionally retarded masses that live in middle America. You know who you are..the "I love Bush, he is great" crowd. The woman who told the reporter she loves Dick Cheney and she just can't help herself should be placed in an institution so she doesn't kill herself while trying to tie her shoes.
Functionally retarded means you were not blessed with a functioning brain, you are stuck in that hellish place where you believe what fat, white men tell you. You watch Fox news because you aren't bright enough to work the remote and that is the default station on your tv.
I have to believe in this retardation because the thought that these people don't have a medical condition that impairs their intelligence is too frightening to contemplate.


So, to more cheerful things. Greys Anatomy, damn! shit or get off the pot already. The continuity fairy obviously got so drunk she passed out because a while back McDreamy made a huge, romantic speech all about love and blah, blah and that appears to have been bullshit. I have had enough of Derek. I want Addison to tell him to fuck off and give McSteamy a nice big kiss right in front of him. Then I want Meredith to call McVet and shove that in McDreamys face too.
What a giant asshole..so congratulations writers! You went for soap opera angst and fell right into the shit.

CSI- oh dear god..where to even start? Listen, if your big reveal at the end of the season is two characters in love? How about showing some of that? And cut out the "my dear" shit.
It makes Grissom sound down right elderly and makes the relationship creepy.
I like the two of them together and I want to see them together okay?
How about a minute at the start or at the end, them doing normal couple things..like making a meal together..It's not all that hard.
More importantly, stay away from the Dr Lecter presentations of the dead. You can't live up to the creepy story so just leave it. The killer was so obvious tonight my cat picked him out and then had a nap.

Every once in awhile I watch ER. Holy crap it's bad. Not bad like tenth season bad, really, really fucking bad. I couldn't watch. I have a crush on Goran that I used to think knew no bounds..well greasy side part Goran? He killed it dead. And with that gone I have no reason to ever watch again. Bye Er! you suck..sorry Goran..wash your hair and I may reconsider...



I have to confess my love for Mandy Patinkin. There I said it..stop laughing. He is not that awful singing doctor from the past I promise. I saw him again in Dead Like Me. A show I loved so much I considered a jihad when Showtime cancelled it. Hi! homeland security! So when Mandy showed up in Criminal Minds I had to see. I can't get over Greg (Dharma and Greg Greg) but I like Mandy. I even enjoyed watching the FBI agent gone vigilante storyline. It was done craftily. The fact that everyone knew she had gone to the dark side but she covered her tracks so well no one could do anything about it was clever.

I admit I haven't been watching baseball. I have no excuse other than watching soccer has ruined it for me. I just cannot see these guys as atheletes anymore. Soccer players on average run 12 miles a game, they have one fifteen minute break. They play in pouring rain, snow, hail and temps over a 100 degrees. The game doesn't stop, it takes a head injury to stop play. So baseball is just too slow, too fat..it's all so lazy. I know there are a million people who will disagree but I suggest you watch one soccer game and then see if your argument holds up.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

none of my business

I was reading Dooce the other day and I was intrigued, oh hell I was nosy about the "settlement" stuff. So, I went looking for the story. For all the drama it seems a simple enough story really. Incredibly lucky blogger gets a fabulous book deal..hell a deal for two books. Publisher appears to be a bit of a dick and fails to do the polite and well, normal thing of letting brand new writer know that the person who they set the deal up with got canned, or moved on as the human resources lawyers like to say. Even worse publisher doesn't make much effort to contact new writer much at all for months.
Anyway, new writers lawyers and agents and stylists and hell "people" manage to work out the final contract apparently to the satisfaction of everyone involved. Except new writer still doesn't know that their contact person has left. Right before signing time the publisher mentions it and Dooce looses her everloving mind. She refuses to sign the contract and tries to walk away...right into the arms of a different publisher or so the sketchy publisher says.
I can see both sides here. I get that not telling Heather about the lost agent is seriously weird and doesn't inspire confidence but really what does it matter?
Heather has to write the books and I am sure they could have found an editor she would have been happy with.
Walking away was a weird power play when Heather had no power. She is a complete unknown as a writer. Being a blogger of some fame doesn't quantify you as a successful writer. Dooce is free reading. The test is how many people will pay a decent chunk of money to read a book by Heather Armstrong. The publisher was taking a chance on an unknown.
Sure Heather had a right to feel a little suspicious but she should have sucked it up and got onto the job of writing.
Finding a publisher willing to take a chance is like hitting the lottery. Walking away from that winning ticket because you got a little "nerve wracked" and disappointed? Smells a little like conceit.
What I do not understand is what the hell were her lawyers telling her? Surely they knew she would be sued for breach of contract.
Some of this feels very much like self sabotage. A new writers reputation is all they have and unfortunately Dooce has splashed into the world of publishing by refusing to honour a contract her representatives worked out.
I hope the settlement is Heather escapes this mistake with only minor penalties and learns a damn valuable lesson.
Talk to your representatives when they are in negotiations for you. Better yet be present for all negotiations so you know what is going on all the time. Just because a lawyer says they have it all under control doesn't mean it's true. Obviously Heathers reps made some real mistakes here and so did sketchy publisher but that is the world of business.
These people are sharks trying to make money, the lowly writer/client is a commodity both are fighting for. Expecting that these groups care about relationships and "your feelings" may be too much to ask for when you are an unknown with no power.

I cannot commend Dooce for her actions though. She made an oral agreement, a commitment and her reasons for dishonoring that just aren't compelling. She had a right to an explanation and an apology and then she should have moved on and done the work she agreed to do. Her reaction was just a tad too diva for me.
Ofcourse it could be some jealousy on my part. I would have been so busy recovering from the shock, elation and madness of being offered a book deal I wouldn't have noticed if they had switched my editor to a Blogger spell check. I would have been more than happy to wait a few months while my, holy shit,lawyer negotiated my book deal!!!!!!!
Where I come from the only time the word lawyer shows up is when someone has been arrested.
I know I have only one side of the story and maybe the publisher did something truly awful and if that is the case..hell. who cares? You have a two book deal..real books that you get to write and someone pays you. It's not like the publisher will be sitting in your living room 24/7 pinching your ass...
Sometimes you have to suffer for your art and putting up with an asshole?...hell, I do that every day for free.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Books

I am on a reading tear right now, reading not Reading the team though I still love them with all my heart. Knocking two Chelsea keepers out cold in one game? Wow...hope they will be okay cause damn.
Anyway, back to books.
I had been avoiding the Lovely Bones for awhile. I don't really know why. The graduations of blue on the jacket maybe. That blue thing always signals really sad story with sort of half assed uplifting ending to me and I haven't been in the mood. I haven't seen any uplifting endings lately.
I liked this book. I liked that this little murdered girl wasn't broken in that awful chicklit way. She was broken but it was the brokenness of a real person not a pasty, soft Hollywood writer played by Kirsten Dunst broken. All the characters had edges that sliced through , making the right, true cuts. The book had the requisite uplifting it's all going to be okay ending but the writer earned that ending. It felt correct that this family would find some way to knit itself back together.
It's a not a fun, beach read but it's worthwhile.

The Liars Club is a memoir and like all memoirs it is filled with the cringeworthy. I don't understand this need to pull out all the worst memories of your life and wave them to the crowd but because we are all voyeurs to some extent it's fascinating reading. Unfortunately for me there were too may spots in this book where I felt like a creep. The very act of reading and then knowing the most intimate details of a tragic life makes me somehow complicit in the acts of violence. As if I have a responsibility to call the cops. I liked the writers style, the use of language but some of the details left me feeling angry , too angry and then realizing that these hurts were a strangers hurts long healed made me feel manipulated.
It's a good memoir but be prepared.

Finally I found a Canadian book retailer that had Pamies book! Why Moms are weird is not a chicklit book. I know some publishing agent thinks it is and the marketers do too but don't listen to them. It's a book book. A well written story that made me a lot more sad than I thought it would. Yes, it is funny and some of the situations are funny but it's not a comedy. It is a book about not fitting in. It's about trying to save people ad realizing you can't and that is sad. It points out that saving someone is a selfish act. Just thinking that someone needs saving reveals a lot about the saver, like they are usually less than thoughtful about other peoples feelings.
I liked the book because it was circular. Every character suffered from alienation and loneliness yet every character manifested their symptoms in completely different ways save one, their inability to choose the right guy. Each character took the same trip finding acceptance but their experiences on that journey were all different. A reminder that we all share the same goals, happiness being the most important and we all choose some really colourful and sometimes damn painful ways to get there.
It's a thoughtful book despite the comedy.
I am a little concerned that Pamie is going for sitcom with this. I get that it can be funny but it's poignant too and a laugh track can strip that out. It's the underlying sadness that makes the characters funny. Their humour and their sometimes grandiose and outlandish choices are a reaction to that sadness. They are railing against loss, real and imagined. I worry that Hollywood wont have much patience with tragedy and that audiences that think Two and a Half men is funny wont have the energy to get a different kind of funny. I look back at Brett Butlers sitcom with some hope though. People thought that was funny right? For a little while anyway before she started the drugs and harassing her underage co-workers..heh..that could be a sit com right there.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Are you thick?

I cannot stand it anymore. I am forced to believe that people are just thick, stupid, dumb.
If I as a health care provider told you that your loved one is a vegetable, paralyzed and will never EVER recover would you ask me every damn time you saw me "so how is she doing today? Any changes?" NO NO NO..no changes, still the same..still a goddamn vegetable..what the hell is your problem?
I get that the first fifty or sixty times we say something over a period of MONTHS you may not be hearing us very well..it's a shock blah,blah,blah but hey wake the fuck up! This patient expressly told everyone they knew they did not want to ever live this way and more importantly they wrote it down .
OOPs! too late! You waited too long. Don't bitch to me about it. You had months on the vent, months of lifesaving antibiotics, surgeries, procedures to pull the plug. You wanted all that so don't come crying to me now that he is a perfectly healthy vegetable that eats from a tube you surgically had placed and she breathes through a hole in her neck you demanded.
You were told right from the very first day he was doomed to be a nursing home patient without a thought in his head. You disagreed. Well, we were right and you were wrong and no we can't kill her off for you because you feel kind of guilty about the whole damn thing.

We told you we could stop treatment back when stopping treatment would actually mean something. What treatment would you like us to stop now? Food? or Water?

How about you take her home and look after her and make whatever choice you want okay?
You made us do unspeakable things to this patient when we knew they didn't want it and it had no value. We did it. You got what you wanted. Now take your pet rock home. Blissfully they wont care what you do. They have no functioning brain. We do and I would like to stop being a monster.
It's so easy to do creepy things when you don't actually have to do anything but sign a piece of paper, you make other people do your dirty work.
Your selfishness knows no bounds and now you reap what you have sown, congratulations.


Just because you fill out a form that says no heroic measures or turn me off if I'm no more than a plant doesn't mean your family has to honour your choice. Any nutcase in your family can challenge what you wrote and we will back down. All it takes is one whacked out daughter to keep you alive as a gorked out veggie tale in a long term care facility where interestingly this same idiot will never bother to visit.
It is disgusting and fascinating to see how quickly the most vicious don't let my daddy die contingent disappears once it is completely clear they should have let daddy die.
Even the most loving stop visiting pretty quickly.

However there is a terrifying other side. The martyr. The nutcase that sobs uncontrollably for months, hounds the staff, bitches and complains and demands to see the manager daily because "daddy looks dirty". The mad as a hatter munchausen by proxy gang that thrills to anything tragic. They will always know best, usually they are childless, still living at home, cat/tiny dog lovers working a menial job with way too much education in very bizarre areas.
In other words they have way too much free time.
My best advice about them is to agree that they are the smartest people alive, agree that they certainly could the job much better and promptly call social services and set it up. Send that patient home with the crazy person. Remember, the patient doesn't care and the nutter will get to feel really valuable for the very first time.Then they will blog about it, all about how dumb the medical staff is and how the nurses are all idiots and only they have all the answers and are perfect all the damn time. Ofcourse every time the patient gets sick they will wail and rush them off to hospital where we can save their fragile vegetable lives and crazy can take all the credit for the save.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Seething

So I had a patient the other day and he was, to put it baldly over the top. He was angry. Unfortunately I didn't realize he was really, really angry. I had walked into an argument I didn't know I was having.
I think we all have had that experience, with co-workers or family. Well, the passive aggressive ones who would rather seethe and exude sarcasm rather that tell you what is making them really angry.
So this patient was in a mini rage about water. He wasn't allowed to drink any more because he had mistakenly been given over a liter and half of water and he was just out of major surgery. Anyone with a little medical training knows that in surgery you get fluid overloaded through your IV's and that anesthesia will slow or stop your bowel function for a short time. So drinking a gallon of water can make you very suddenly very sick with some spectacular projectile vomiting or worse it can stress your heart and cause heart failure making it very difficult to breath.
So we strictly control your water, or we should.
I did not realize that withholding excessive drinking would send this guy over the edge.
It was the first time I have been called a Nazi bitch.
To make matters even worse this guy had some breathing problems . He was becoming so sedated with the massive amount of pain medication he kept demanding that he was breathing very poorly.
I had to ask him to do some breathing exercises.
Now, keep in mind he had already called me a Nazi for not giving him water, so yes, he really handed me my ass over the breathing exercises. I stood there while a barrage of hate rolled over me. He finished up by telling me to go fuck myself,
I ofcourse did the only sane thing possible and gave him another dose of pain medication and a drink of water. Well...he hated me even more for that.
An hour later I had to do an ECG. At this point I no longer cared and I just wanted to get it over with. He continued with his campaign of "wow you are an incompetent bitch with a terrible attitude and you should find a new job cause you suck at this".
I told him why in very clinical terms why I was required to do what I had done. He laughed at me, called me a bitch and again told me to fuck off. I gave him more pain medication.

Now a lot of people would think from this story that this patient was a monster. They would think that I had every right to be offended and cold.
I don't agree.
I failed this patient. I wasn't paying attention to what this guy was trying very hard to tell me. He wasn't angry about the water or the pain medication or even the breathing exercises. He was pissed because he had lost control over his life. He had entered a hospital and we had taken his rights away. That is what was scaring him and that fear made him angry.
He kept talking about "I'm not a baby" and that should have been my clue. I didn't pick up on that and I failed him.
I was cold and clinical. I offered him all the right reasons for why he was being denied the things he wanted. I gave him my intellect but I forgot my empathy.
I thought it was enough that he knew the reasons for things. He didn't care about the reasons, he wanted reassurance that he would get his life back, his autonomy. The right to drink a glass of water when he wanted it and not when I said he could.
He felt bullied and that is my fault.

Thankfully he was a different man a day later and apologized and I apologized to him too.

A hospital is a scary place. Because I spend most of my time there I have lost all fear of it. I forget that for some people they have never been inside a hospital and it's all terrifying.
Sure that patient should have refrained from calling me foul names, that wasn't cool at all but in some way I may have pushed him to it. He wanted some response, even if it was anger and I couldn't even bother to give him that. Though I am pretty hard to piss off, most of the time I find the drug fueled ranting of patients kind of funny. They can be incredibly inventive with the language and hearing an 85 year old little old lady curse like a whore is pretty fabulous really.

A non response or a practical, clinical response can trigger even more anger. It puts even more distance between health care provider and patient. It reinforces that "I have control here" thing that is terrifying them.
I cannot say I will never do this again, I hope I wont and I will try very hard not to but honestly sometimes you get tired or busy or overwhelmed and you just hold on to doing what has to be done until you get to go home.

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