Measure of Mortality

There comes a time in every person's life when he's faced with the reality of just where he is in his journey of life, what side of the mountain, so to speak. Whether he is still going uphill yet to reach the zenith, or perhaps missed it because instead of some monumental peak, it was more an unremarkable plateau that made no distinguishing impact on his psyche, missing it almost entirely as the zenith it actually was.

It's like being at an amusement park always knowing that "during the day" at some point, one will give in and wait in the infinitely long line to ride that top-billed thrill ride in order to experience a true peak in excitement, yet, postponing until the line is not so long, only to find that the day has been spent. Discovering instead that the plateau of semi-exciting rides is what one has opted for instead, and having to come to terms with the quickly setting dusk. Do you get in line at that point? Risking what there is left to experience that peak?

I've been handed a harsh dose of reality at this point in my life, as many do in their early forties, and I've always been a thrill-rider. Never lamenting the time wasted inching along even as the zenith of a day passes, knowing that the two or three moments I've risked so much for will always be worth the many mild pleasures that could have filled what can only be called a vacuum of life instead of living itself. I'm not the hugest risk-taker, mind you. I would never hop on a ride with a higher mortality than survival rate, lol, but what does it mean to merely survive as opposed to really living? (sorry for the split infinitives)

And what to do now that dusk has approached? How do I know it's even dusk? Mortality calls. Youth is waning, or health at least indicates that change is in order and priorities re-adjusted.

So, now I approach the long trailing line that has only diminished during meal times by maybe a few feet. A late-comer to the party, never daunted by that omni-present fact of my own self-fashioned futility that persists until I succeed despite odds, I resolve to take advantage of the plateau that has settled over my psyche to ready for a self-wrought peak. I must. I claim this plateau and ready myself to carve out a peak if need be.

There is no measure of my life except that which I determine I must do or be. I determine to have it all.

Full Crow Good Friday--A Very Special "ER"

Today I decided to start an entirely new category: full moons. And I’m welcoming comments, feedback, and your shared stories.

1:45 pm Arrive at the hospital in the very small ER parking with six regular looking cars there already, four “busses” commonly known as paramedic vans, and I line up third waiting for valet in the no parking zone. No one present at valet, but the plain-clothed admitting clerk takes my key and assures me he’ll handle it. A woman passes me in what appears to be a uniform with maybe cartoonish puppies on it, crying aloud, sloughing her slippered feet along the floor, as another woman entering after me looks at me and says knowingly, “You too?”

1:50 pm I sign off for admission, locating a seat in the patient area where there are three women non-patients, one over 70, and two others between 35 and 45, all chattering irritatingly. Now, I’ve had one small surgical incision come open again, having not taken my pain meds so I can drive to the ER safely, and the twinge of pain in this now-reopened cut was being made more unbearable by the chattering in the patient area by non-patients. What are they chattering about? The Wailing Woman. “Why don’t they just give that woman something?” the seventy-year-old asks too loudly, oblivious to the fact that all seated within fifteen feet can actually hear her, and maybe all those behind the glass at the admitting desk, too. Maybe that was her intent. The three women discuss the fact that they’ve been there since noon as The Wailing Woman has, what her problem is, the ineptitude of the hospital, its need for increased size, more doctors, better efficiency, all apparently for the benefit of their ailing companions and those fortunate strangers like me who were just lucky enough to be in the ER on a full-moon day within earshot of wise musings. And then…

1:55 pm The Wailing Woman begins to remind us without words that she is still there, wailing, moaning, crying, groaning again. This generates more speculation and analysis from the Chattering Armchair Doctors acting like they are on the Morbidity and Mortality Review Board for the hospital itself, going over every death knell the hospital places in its own coffin. I decide I should probably go ahead and take that Vicodin and settle in for a long afternoon.

2:10 pm In the transient traffic, a dirty looking man near 40 has wheeled over in a wheelchair in a hospital robe. He has long reddish blonde hair, scruffy facial hair with dirty jeans, and pretty thin. As The Wailing Woman continues her song, the man becomes increasingly agitated, beginning to complain aloud. No apparent reason why he seems more agitated than the rest of us by her loud caterwauling. She reminded me of Snoopy in a “Peanuts” televised special, when he was outside and wanted food from Charlie Brown: “OwowowOWwoooowwwwOwwwwwwww!” Mr. Red Temper, though, was too much like Grendel, the sensitive beast of old English lore, because the more she caterwauled, the more he reacted.

2:30 pm Mr. Red Temper begins to create a scene, yelling at a male nurse behind the admitting glass, calling him foul names, until the admitting clerk and a security guard stand next to him in his wheel chair. “Why don’t you all give her something? Why are you keeping her waiting? Can’t you see that she’s bothering everyone here???” He continues to gesticulate as though he were seated on the fifty yard line in earshot of a referee, and continues commenting how we—pointing at all the rest of us in the patient area—are all irritated by The Wailing Woman, but moreso because no one would help her. The admitting clerk looked over, and I just couldn’t be silent. “Actually, the yelling you’re doing is worse than hearing that woman in pain,” I said. He had cut me off though, and started to yell more nodding that I was agreeing with him. I reasserted, “No, your yelling is making it worse for everyone. If you want to complain, could you please do it more quietly?” He was quickly embarrassed, apologized and put his head in his hand.

2:45 pm Mr. Red Temper removes his gown, his leads, grabs his t-shirt with only that to wear in 30° weather, and shoves the wheelchair he was sitting in and storms out. I hope he wasn’t being monitored for a heart attack. The seventy-year-old non-patient chatterbox pipes up that he shouldn’t have stormed out like that. That the hospital should never make someone in pain wait over two hours for medication. Finally her husband speaks up who needs a few stitches in his elbow after a fall in the driveway. “Eh, they probably know she’s a drug addict.” Smartest person in the ER has been quietest up until now. Of course, it was the same thing I was thinking as soon as Mr. Hot Head walked out without treatment. Must not have really been an emergency, right?

2:55 pm The lady who replaced him came in hacking, her lungs rattling, and I watched a male nurse get her a face mask which she tied, but never covered her mouth with, just left it hanging from an ear. She complained until she got a cover which she never unfolded over her supposed cold body. She flopped her arm around the edge of the admitting glass like puppies paw at the windows when you visit a pet store just wanting to be noticed. At that moment, watching the continuing drama in the ER of people begging for attention, sometimes just drugs, I laughed out loud confusing the Three Chatters and the other patients around me. Well, it was funny to watch this woman behave like a six-year-old, flopping her arm on the ledge trying to get attention when quite obviously, the staff’s attention was spread quite thin this day. It struck me at that moment: it’s a full moon. I remembered how many times I’d watched ER on television and how they’d always had exceptionally odd days on full moons. Our ER is no different then, and fiction actually mirrors reality. Then she began to moan as she wheeled herself across the entrance way to the patient waiting area where the rest of us sat. She slowly wheeled passed each of us, sweetly saying excuse me, then saying to one of them, I was in the hospital last week and developed a viral infection. The seventy-year-old immediately began complaining loudly to The Contagious Woman as she continued to wheel herself into a dead end with the rest of us already there, forcing each of us out of the patient waiting area quickly one by one. She wanted to prop her feet up, and who cares if it inconvenienced eight people and moved them all from their seats? “Hack, wheeze, cough” all over the arms of the surrounding chairs while her mask dangled from her ear.

In the general waiting room, there was an unbearable constant buzzing from an unknown source, and the smell of bed breath and unwashed clothes that had accumulated over weeks of hygiene neglect. I had to move once more, this time choosing a seat on the end of a row, and placing my purse in the only open seat available next to me.

4:30 pm I’m finally taken to minor care where they tell me that my stitch is too contaminated with bacteria to re-sew. They give me bacitracin, some gauze, different orders for that cut, and within a half hour, I’m discharged.

5:30 pm A woman about 4’10” spherical took my valet ticket. I have a truck, but I had bigger reservations about allowing a woman of that size to sit in my car seat. I saw where my car was parked, and though in pain, I jogged after her, explaining that the car was close enough, handed her several dollars, and got my keys to finally go home.

So tell me about your full moon experience if you have one interesting to share. Post it in comments. I’ll do this every full moon, reporting the odd behavior of people in Blogville or anywhere their lunatic behavior calls attention.

And here are some of the specially named moons of our year from the farmers' almanac.

Yeah, Me Too

Clinton: "My plan for national health care DOES include a mandate, but it ensures universal coverage not just of America's children, but also of their parents. The plan is economically covered."

Obama: "Yeah, me too."

Clinton: "Yes, Tim, I will opt out of NAFTA if Canada and Mexico refuse to re-negotiate items that have hurt the American economy."

Obama: "Yeah, me too. 'It's OUR TIME.'"

Clinton: "A Democratic nominee should not only denounce the actions of hate group leaders like Ferrakhan, but reject their support and endorsement."

Obama: "Yeah, me too. Reject, denounce, whatever. EMPOWER!"

Clinton: "My foreign policy includes a withdrawal of troops and a hands-off relationship with sovereign nations with no consideration of re-invasion based alone on that sovereign nation's instability."

Obama: "Yeah, me too. CHANGE."

Clinton: "Your Ohio mailings, Senator Obama, falsify my positions on important issues like Health Care and NAFTA. We, in fact, have similar positions on critical points of health care except that you don't provide a universal plan for ALL AMERICANS."

Obama: "Uh, YES, WE CAN!"

Spin Room: Obama was presidential...

Very true, indeed, he sounds very much like GEORGE W.

Certainly, Obama was presidential if the measuring stick is anything but change compared to the last 8 nightmarish years...will the real Democrats PLEASE wake up!!!!!!!!!

November's Trip to Wonderland

I was part of history tonight.

In my small corner of the world, I watched a first in the history of the American presidency as a woman candidate and an African-American candidate debate for the Democratic nomination for the 2008 election. The event was only 50 miles from my own home, yet I had no chance of attending this spectacle hosted by Cleveland State University in the Wolstein Center right in the heart of downtown Cleveland. It wasn’t like I didn’t send in my entry for the public lottery for the remaining tickets. I think what did me in was the fact that, though I’m sure of my choice of candidate, I checked that I was undecided.

We might be under the illusion that our democratic process is somehow fair, somehow egalitarian for candidates, but as a voting grown-up, I have to relinquish the fairy tale of real democracy along with the death-grip I used to have on the Easter Bunny. Democracy is a fairy tale. While I’d love to think that both candidates were given a fair and balanced opportunity to present their positions on many critical issues facing the nation right now and continuing into the next 20 years, I know better. The beginning of the debate was antagonistic, and Senator Clinton called out Brian Williams and Tim Russert on that very point: she’s been given the first question, put on the defensive, consistently throughout the debate process since the Democratic nominee field was narrowed to two. She’s right, of course, but took it like a woman.

In any debate structure, the party to answer second usually has the advantage what’s been said can be built upon, detracted from, or flat out refuted. The second party most often gets the last word, has the opportunity to successfully interrupt and usurp the verbal point. Yeah, Hillary, you’re right. That’s the shaft.

The worst part about it is that Republican media have railroaded the Clinton campaign with biased reporting and propaganda since Iowa. It makes me wonder if the Republican base is so desperate to keep another Clinton off the ticket to the extent they would elevate a candidate who might ensure that another Republican wins the White House in November. And the polling numbers are bearing this out, at least according to the media as well. More and more of the former Democratic male voter base who supported Bill Clinton's presidency 1992-2000 have swung away from the Clinton think-tank from the delirium of what's been phrased as the Obama Jesus Juice.

Why are male Democrats moving toward Obama when they know how successful the Clinton Think Tank, which includes not only Bill Clinton but any or all of their trusted cohorts, was and will be again? Are our male Democrats so fearful of a woman president to the extent they would actually repudiate a known policy base for a shaky inexperienced unknown one? Could our men be listening with their testosterone parts instead of their brains? Or is it simply that they are sheep following a misleading media? Our media wouldn’t do that, would they?

Let’s add a revision of the First Amendment to the list of critical issues facing the nation to include “REPORT THE FACTS; RESPECT THE TRUTH.”