So The Drama...

I may not have mentioned this before, but I am a Sociologist, yes, a card carrying, Ph.D. earning Sociologist.  There are lot of ways we filter things in our lives & mine is often through my discipline.  Our field of study, our religious/philosophical leanings, our political idioms, etc...often affect how we filter the goings on in the world into this little we call reality.  Reality isn't something that is set or even all that certain.  It's only concrete when we agree it is so.  If we don't agree, it's turtles all the way down.

I specialized in Social Psychology & Social Ecology. More over I am a theorist.  Most theories in sociology come in either macro or micro levels (big or small), I think that is faulty & reductionist. The small affects the big & vice verse.  But for the time I'll stick with the sort of small.   According to Dramaturgy, Shakespeare was right & all the world's a stage.  Dramaturgy is an aspect of Symbolic Interactionism, which basically discusses how we all interact with others, things & the meanings that arise from these interactions with others & things.

South Park's episode,  Sexual Healing S14E01, was about sexual addiction.  The episode presents sexual addiction as a ruse for the behavior of those people who have been caught in compromising situations.   (I have no idea if the writers actually feel this way or not.)   At one point one of the boys, Kyle, calls BS on it all & says that everyone just needs to responsibility for their actions.  This is the part that I do agree with entirely.

I am not an existentialist that believes you are in control of every part of your life, but I do believe in taking responsibility for it.  My parents were horrible, they were alcoholics, abusive & they bailed.  The fact is they screwed my life up irrevocably.  The stage that my life plays out on was initially set by my parents & other factors beyond my control.  I do not hold myself accountable for that. However, I am now an adult & regardless of the setting & stage props I have to make due with the scene playing out before me.

I can not choose the background from which I am from.  I couldn't choose a lot of things that were decided for me before I was an adult.   I can now.  I can choose & I can accept the consequences for those decisions.  I am not normal, I will never be that.  I came from the proverbial sea of chaos & was the little kid trying to be a rock.  As a young adult I felt like chaos trapped in a sea of rocks.  Then I moved on to the motto, "I am a leaf on the wind, watch me soar." Well, all of those ideas & actions got me to where I am now & I have to accept it.  I am on disability.  I am not anywhere I thought I would be at my age.  I am +.  Most of all, this is my doing. Sometimes knowing that is just plain awful, but at least I did it & it wasn't done to me.

My actions, reactions or inactions have made my life mine.  I just have to accept that, hopefully embrace it or I'm left with my life being little more than a Kim Possible Movie.

Aware & Thankful...

A blog I read touched on a subject that struck a nerve with me & makes me realize somethings for which I am thankful.  The blog is The Ravings of  Blackhaired Barbie.   This particle entry was responding to an article on Kotaku about mean-geek reactions & slurs slung at female gamers.  If you have to ask what mean-geeks are they are like mean-girls but geeky & male.  These pathetic little boys couldn't handle female players, especially not when the girl kicked their asses.  The geeks resorted to slurs consisting mainly of fat, ugly or slutty.  These comments have become some common place among these boys there is a FUS blog.  It isn't a blog to cry poor me those boys won't let me play their geek-deer games.  It's a blog mainly about the stupidity of gamer boys.

I'm aware it can be a total pain to be female in this society.   I'm not saying it's easy being male either, but it's the hell I know.  I don't have to worry about getting pregnant, having a period or getting menopause.  I don't have to worry about lower pay rates or glass ceilings.  Most men will never knew the feeling of being treated purely like property or as a piece a meat/ass, like any woman will.  I realize there are some things this society will tolerate from women that they won't from males.  I think that is total BS as well.  Simpy stated, I am thankful I am not female.

Last Thursday, CSI aired an episode about deaf people.  The culprit in the story was a total loser who thought that deaf & wheelchair bound people had everything in society given to them so he tried to con them.   I nearly spat out my drink when the character said that, the audacity & stupidity of such a statement.  Still, some people do feel that way.  I guess they never consider the trade-off or not being able to hear or being trapped in a chair forever.  Hearing & mobility, without those in this society, at least for me, would be unimaginably hard, almost herculean.  To lose my music or not be able to go into any store I wanted because it didn't meet the needs of my particular disability would be awful & frustrating.  Only an idiot would be jealous of someone else just because the other person had a disability.

I am on SSI.  I am considered disabled.  I am +.  However, I know things could be so much worse.  I am thankful for not being female, not being deaf & most importantly I am thankful I never had any children.  I'm sure some people would gasp at that statement.   But, what could I do to help them, to take care of them if I did have children?

I am aware that I am thankful for these things.   But, I can't sympathize with them, I'm not even sure I can entirely empathize with these people.  I am none of these things mention above & nothing in my life leaves feeling confident enough to say I know what they're going through & how it feels.  What I can do, is to acknowledge these peoples' struggles, not add to them, be helpful where I can & be very thankful that their lives are not my own.

Knee Jerk...

We all have people in our lives that cause us to react irrationally.  Some people anger us, some just annoy us & others just plain creep us out.  Those are the people I want to talk about today.  Those people in our lives that just send us into reaction mode that have never given us any cause to do or feel anything towards or about them.

Yet we do feel things about them.  Our instincts kick & make our skin crawl or feel the need for fight or flight.  We recently got a new neighbor in the rent house next to us, they happen to be people of color.  I grew up with people, who if they were still alive, would be writing letters to their congressmen telling them to have these people removed immediately. They were the types to look at a person from Cuba & call them a Mexican.  If you had corrected them & told them those people were from Cuba, they'd have told you, " I don't care what part of Mexico he's from."

I know that sounds horrible & racist, but it was the time they were from & the feeling is/was pretty common around these parts.  The town I grow up in only had one little black girl living there, other than the athletes who stayed on the college campus.  It must've been holy hell for her growing up in Miami, OK in the 1970's.  My grandmother would never let me even speak to anyone of color.  She a plethora of names for them, antiquated slurs, but amazingly enough none of them were the N-word.

The funny thing was that my mother, one of the world's top ten lushes, never ever addressed anyone like that.  She never once judged someone on their skin color, religion or whatever other descriptor you could imagine.  I learned tolerance from her, but not because she was exactly tolerant.  I learned not to judge others on those matters because my mother didn't want others judging her for her own short comings.

Regardless of the reason, the fact she didn't judge them stuck with me.  Over the years I've gone to school with, been friends with & even been involved (romantically or just sexually) with people of many ethnic backgrounds.  So, it really bothers me when I have knee-jerk reactions to people that I can't explain.

There is a man who works in a local business I frequent that quite frankly just creeps me out.  I don't know why.  He has never done anything to me.  I've never heard of him doing anything untoward, but still he is Mondo Creepy!  As it turns out, he has the same affect on my roommate.  We debate, is he a serial killer?  Is he a pedophile?  Is he an ax wielding maniac that on fifth Tuesday of every month hunts down people who like local news reporters or what?

It may be fun for us to speculate this matter, but the fact is he has done nothing to merit this contemplation of his personal life.  I have no reason to believe he is any of these things, but in the back of my mind I wonder.  I think, do not make eye contact & back away as quickly as possible without being obvious.

I shouldn't feel this way, but I do.  After all don't they say that serial killers are just like everyone else?  Don't the neighbors of these killy-types generally say the killer was always the most friendly person to have for a neighbor?  Whatever, the guy still creeps me out.  All I can do is try not to act on those feelings or let him realize I feel that way.  Good luck to me on that one.

Rewards

After I'd posted the first month anniversary of my blog, my roommate suggested I be rewarded with something.  I'd been looking at a new chair for my front room where I could use a computer.   Most chairs were to big for the spot in mind or way to deep to sit at & use a computer comfortably.  We noticed a commercial advertising a nice little accent chair at a local chain for under a hundred bucks.  Sounded great, so off we went to Fort Smith to Furniture Factory Outlet, FFO.

There was a wholesale/resale place on the way over so I decided to stop & look to what they might have.  They didn't have what I needed but they did have a lot of good buys on new/used appliances.  I tucked that info neatly away into my swiss-cheese memory & headed out on to FFO.

I get to FFO & ask to see the chairs that they advertised on TV & in print.  They took me to one lone, ugly chair.  Not only was it hideous, it was no where near resembling the one they had shown in the commercial.  It was much wider & far more squat.  The chair they had shown on TV was narrow, like a armed slipper chair.  It had a nice reverse, camel-back apron & a roll-over back.  This chair they were now showing me was a short, squashed cube covered in what felt like burlap with a nasty print.  When I pointed it out, they told it was just the same as the chair they had in he ad.  Fed up, I left.

The van was covered in snow & road sludge, so we decided to wash the car at one of those drive thru, brush car-washes.  It was interesting.  It cleaned the van well.   So well indeed, it cleaned the antenna right off it.  

Then we headed to Big Lots & finally managed to find a chair, or several chairs.  There was a nice little u-shaped accent chair in questionable fabric, a set of shaky parsons chairs & the one I finally choose.  We opted for a normal high-backed, armed computer chair. It wasn't what I wanted, but it was something that  I could live with & could do the job.  Didn't hurt that it was half the price of the of the other options.

It was an interesting experience.  One I should've have expected.  I've never had any luck with ads from furniture stores, especially not outlet ones.  The antenna got replaced & we got out of the house for an excursion.  Seems like the Stones had it right....

One Month Anniversary...

I should be getting a gift for my blog, after all its be a full month since I stared this experience.  Ha, I have no regard for people who feel so unsure of a relationship that they have to mark every passing moment like there won't be another.  Don't misunderstand me, I am a gift giver. I'm actually pretty good at it.  Gifts should have purpose or be totally whimsical, but they should always have the recipient in mind.  There's really nothing worse than getting a gift from someone who's supposed to be involved in your life that had absolutely no thought put into it.  If you don't want to try & get a good gift, just tell the person that you suck at gift giving & give them a money card.


I digress, this is about the relationship between my blog & me.  So far, so good, I can't complain, not like I'm going to take it out to see a movie or anything, it's a blog. This blog was supposed to be about my life after my eleventh HIV-Day.  I haven't wrote about being + everyday & I have no intention of it.  HIV alters my life enough with having to bow down it to every second of the day, 24/7. 


I tried to look for other similar blogs, so far no luck.  The other HIV blogs I've found have been dedicated to technically medical, legislative, hospice, world scene or political.  I'm pretty sure there are HIV blogs out there just about living, maybe I'll find them.  It might nice to read about someone else's experience being +.  I'm sort of used to having to go solo in this issue though.  There aren't any support groups around my area & it's been difficult looking online.  I'm a very gregarious Virgo, I can talk up a storm with someone, but its not usually very personal unless I really, really have to or I know the person.  Opening up on personal matters such as this just isn't me.


The HIV+ 01032001 blogs heads out into its second month wish us luck.

Groundhogs & Bad Teeth...

The little beastie saw his shadow again, so here comes another six weeks of wintery hell.  This little animal shouldn't get to do the weather report even if it is only on February the second.  To add to the drama, I had to go to the dentist.  This meant a 30+ drive on the ice.  Wouldn't have done it but somehow I cracked a tooth.  Never felt a thing until I noticed a sharp place on my tooth.  It had happened yesterday, but no one was in my dentist's office so I had to wait until today.


I got up earlier than normal to get cleaned up just in case the dentist will be in this morning.  I hate morning showers.  My early morning zombie stare self goes into pissed off cat mode for getting wet that damn early in the morning.  Finally they call & say I can make the treacherous drive over to his office in Fort Smith, AR.


I warm up the car & get the roommate in their as well, mind you she went willingly, but sat white knuckled & silent the entire way.  The drive was tedious, it took nearly an hour and a half to make a just over thirty mile drive. The roads were either ice slicks or worse, they were rutted from the semis driving over them.  We only badly fishtailed once, maybe twice, but we made it there.


I had just been in the dentist office in December to have my teeth cleaned & annual looksy/X-ray.  Then they saw nothing, but apparently somehow my tooth had been decaying from the inside, yuck.  I was convinced he was going to say, "You need a root canal," but he didn't.  He just drilled & hacked away at the tooth.  Then the bondo experience began.  He'd do a layer, then wait, do another then stop.  All I could think was that, this is how they plaster walls. Finally he was done.  Actually it took almost no time, it just felt like it was an all morning job.


The dentist told me that somehow the X-ray had missed the internal issue with tooth & that it was a good call to get into him so soon.  There very well might've have been a dreaded root canal in future if I hadn't have gotten in when I did.  


It's not that I fear the root canal because of pain, my dentist is good at dealing with pain issues of dentistry.  No I hate the root canal, because they're expensive.  First a few hundred $$ for that procedure & the several more hundred $$ for the crown that would be needed to cover the root canal.  In my best Mr. Mackey from South Park voice, " Root Canals, they're bad."


The real problem here is that I am +. HIV is hell on teeth, HIV meds can be hell on teeth & in turn not taking care of your teeth can be hell on your HIV.  I'd give a link, but you'd be better just to google HIV dental issues & get the most up to date info, the results are fairly immense.  HIV can lead to numerous dental complications & these complications can lead to infections that can impact your overall health.


I'm home now, tooth fixed, roommate sedating herself with facebook & cats & I am thankful.  I'm grateful my tooth wasn't in worse shape, that we survived the drive & that my roommate (who is terrified of ice) went with me to my appointment.  I am also very thankful for my dentist & his office.  I found a good one, Dr. J, Stephen Wilson At Dental Solutions.

To all those out there in the cold, keep warm & safe.  I hope your teeth are doing well, if not I hope you have a good dentist like mine.

Here Comes The Ice...

In the middle of the night I heard this tapping at my windows, then a skittering sound across the glass.  I woke to figure out it was sleet, the beginnings of a mess.  We're supposed to get an Ice Storm here in OK today. I'm not a fan of the ice, it doesn't really scare me like some people, but I'm still not a fan.  

For those of you that just get snow, snow is far easier to deal with than ice, which is mostly what we get around these parts.  Snow can compact and actually give some traction.  Ice just leads to idiots trying to drive their cars like they're in some auto version of Skating With The Stars or the ice chapter of Top Gear.  Take your choice, neither one is pretty.

Ice demands respect.  If you can't give ice its due, then stay off of it.  Ice can send a well equipped vehicle, with a seasoned driver plummeting into a ditch.  What do think it can do to you & your vehicle?  For a lot of us, that part is avoidable, we just hunker down & stay in our homes.  That doesn't mean we're out of the icy woods though.

No, there are plenty of ways that the ice will still mess with you. Can you open your door or is it frozen shut?  Did your pipes freeze?  Do you still have power?  These are just a few of the bad things that happen in an ice storm.  Imagine being stranded out on an ice covered highway unable to get home.  Ice can leave you totally stranded; no power, no telephone, no way to get to or do anything.

If we are lucky, the ice will turn to snow.  Snow is far less problematic & usually prettier.  Icicles are pretty, you say.  You think those frozen spikes are pretty?  Ice is dangerous.  It can fall off of buildings in chunks or spikes, it can black ice a highway, it break tree limbs that fall through your roof.  I doubt there is little ice can't do if it gets chance.  Ever see a glacier?  


Give the frozen stuff it's due, stay inside if you can, but just play it safe with ice or you might end up like Dr. Yang, here...