Finding Zen

My Fathers 9/11 Broadcast

I have just received an email from a producer at my father's old radio station with some information about some of his old broadcasts they have been trying to pull together for his 'fans' on their website.  I am hearing his words for the first time in 2 years, and I can't put words to how I feel right now.

Here is a portion of his radio show the morning of September 11th.  Wow.

If you are interested, there are several more podcasts of my fathers shows at the following site.  Eerily, you may notice from Podcast 1, his voice sounds so much weaker...as this was one of his shows towards the end when he was STILL GOING INTO THE STUDIO while heavily medicated and going thru chemo and radiation at the time.  ACK!

Enjoy.  Although, as I'm sure you and I both know...I do this more for my own healing, then because I believe it will mean as much to any of you.

I am far from where I want to be with this.  So thank you for listening when I put this kind of stuff out there.

Shit Happens

And sometimes, all it takes is a sneeze, or a cough...or a....(well you know where this one's going).

Due to the graphic nature of the following post, I am warning you now there will be talk of vile nasty things.  If you like to believe in your perfect world that pretty girls don't fart, shit, vomit, or get diarrhea, EDGE, please move on to your next blog.  This is not for you.  (And really, I just don't want to hear about how 'gross' I am, because until you have JUST experienced what I have experienced...THEN AND ONLY THEN do you have the right to say SHIT to me about JACK.  Umkay?)

I wrote these words in a journal, lying in my bed Wednesday after I had been visited for 12 hours by body snatching aliens. 

'The aliens came for me today.  My body was not my own.  Do you remember the last time your body challenged your ass's ability to stay shut while vomiting furiously into the toilet?  If you have ever in your life had to make the critical choice of whether you would rather A) shat, or B) vomit on yourself, because you can't do BOTH into the toilet at the same time...you remember.  There seriously was a moment I considered just lying face down in the bathtub.

When I was 7 years old I had my first true taste of this sick joke.  The ASS/VOMIT battle for porcelain.  A sick, sick, result of a stomach/intestinal virus.  Now let me tell you people.  It is one thing to have your MOTHER clean up after you.  Thankfully while I haven't had this experience since then, there was no way in hell I'd be having the same man who just the other day witnessed me in some very sexy thigh high leather boots -- clean up my shit (which THANK GOD never actually happened) off the floor.  Ironically, weren't we just discussing this whole 'would you clean up after me if I shat myself' talk??  I must have brought it on myself...

Last night around 4am the first wave came sending me in a sprint to the guest bathroom.  For the next 12 hours it went a little something like this.

Rinse.  Lather.  Repeat.  No wait, I must be delirious...silly me, it was...

Shit. Vomit. Sleep for an hour.  Repeat.

Sometimes all overlapping one another.

There is something incredibly disturbing about the sensation of peeing from your ASS.  BUT IT HAPPENS GOD DAMMIT, so don't sit there acting like you have no idea what the fuck I am talking about. 

This is not what nature had intended. 

I am lying in bed, writing for my blog, experiencing a hell of some funk, thinking to myself 'if this shit (pun intended) happens to me in India, or in the middle of BFE Patagonia, I will seriously want to DIE.'

Well I survived.  And the reason why I am compelled to tell you about this in the first place is because SHITTY LIFE EXPERIENCES should be shared.  And I had THE SHITTIEST 12 HOURS OF MY LIFE just now...and this is my blog, and I'll say what I want to say.  I can say with confidence, that Finance, has officially see me at my WORST. 

I would not wish Alien Abduction upon my worst enemy.  It's no joke people.  No joke at all...

Edge.  Are you still with us?

**In other news, I used Finance's deodorant this morning because I was out of mine, and I totally think I'm going to puke.

***I had ANOTHER dream about Jessica Simpson last night.  She was in distress and I was helping her out.  Her boobs were huge.  What could this mean???

Botox and Bling

Let's talk about plastic surgery.

It wasn't until about 9th grade that I became increasingly more aware of the extra fold under my chin.  Weighing in at no more than 100lbs, wet, I had a double chin.  WTF?

In 12th grade, sitting among the company of my closest friends one night at our local dig...'The Village Inn', my friend Fabian, who was in a band....as every thrift store shoppin, 18 year old who listened to Pavement was...sat sipping his coffee and belting out impromptu lyrics to his new song.  The song was named after me.  And one of the lyrics went a little something like this:

'She always wins....with her double chins....'

And we all laughed.  Funny, ha ha.  By 18, it was no big secret, how I felt about my extra chin.  I am the type of person who is the first to point out her insecurities.  The first to point out the thing you may tell someone else in secret, because it might be insulting were you to say it out loud.  I guess I have always been a bit paranoid about people talking about me behind my back, so I have always figured I'd better beat someone 'to the punch' so to speak. 

Example.  When I got engaged...I got a BIG OL DIAMOND.  BIG.  Were talkin 2 carat BLING.  Whenever someone has asked to see it, I feel compelled to give them a speech about how 'yes i know its huge, and no, I'm not a spoiled bitch, and then I go on to give every last detail about how the 'ring' came to be....as if A) it's anyones business in the first place, and B) they are bound to make assumptions about me based on this big ol' rock.  Yes, I care sometimes too much what other people think.  And no, I am not embarrassed by my big ol rang.  It's beautiful.  And I am honored to wear it...as it has tremendous sentimental value to me...having come from the VERNSTER. 

SOOOOOOOO.  If I have a big ol double chin.  I will go ahead and tell you about it, then you don't have to feel so bad for me.  Orrrrrr, then you don't have to go run off and whisper in someone's ear that I have a big ol double chin.  I know.  Thank you very much.

I'm sure there is a name for this kind of preemptive behavior.  I think it's Paranoia.  Or anxiety.  Or both.

Anyway.  By the time I was 21, I had managed to convince the rest of my family that my obsession with my chin wasn't going away.  The older I got, the more critical I became of myself, and I finally got to a point where I decided that I had to do something about it.  I think the final straw was when my dear sweet grandmother shipped me a CHIN BALL my sophomore year in college.  I was like, 'this is fucking bullshit'.

So the year after I graduated college, I happened to find myself in a relationship with someone who had a well known Atlanta plastic surgeon for an uncle.  BRILLIANT!

I rallied money from the fam, they finally gave in...and decided to support my decision to have THE CHIN sucked out.

On September 10th, 2001 Stella's DC was removed.  For good.  Vacummed....O-U-T.  Into a canister.  I was proud.  Order in the universe restored.  I could go about my life with renewed confidence.  While I would not personally feel comfortable with water balloons in my body, I'm all for botox and liposuction.  Deal with it.

Which brings me to my latest procedure.  Botox.  I am totally getting botox and restylane injected into my face.  Hopefully it doesn't paralyze me and I am able to say my vows on July 15th. 

There is a line in between my eyebrows and other body parts are beginning to feel a gravitational pull to my face.  I can't let this happen.  Besides, I am not even 30 yet, and I haven't had children.  If you know me, you know my face is in a constant state of furrow...the furrow accounts for so many emotions it has taken a taxing on my face that makes me look 10 years older than I am.  And it's bullshit.

Now...any ideas where I can come up with $650 bucks? 

Hale To The Carpet Lady!

What would you do for a good friend?  At what lengths would you go, for your amigo? 

If there is one thing I can say about my good friend Hillary, it is that she is totally dependable.  Unfortunately I don't think I can admit the same quality about myself.  I am more likely to be willing to help you if its convenient for me.  If it's totally out of my way...I may do it, but not without some total guilt trip.  I'm not proud of that, merely something I have noticed about myself that becomes obvious in times where I have really been in need, and been lifted up by a few special people. 

Without complaint. Hillary is one of those people.  Almost to a fault, she is completely selfless.  It is the thing I admire most about her.  She would probably wipe my ass if I shat myself in public and was unable to do anything about it.  Unlike Finance, who has already admitted to me (and yes we have had this discussion!) that were I to accidentally shat myself he would ONLY help me if it were from illness.  That if I were to shat myself from drunkenness, I would be on my own.  Fairweather partner he is eh?

I wanted to share with you an example of this sort of 'above and beyond' quality in a friend.

Remember the story about the internet reservist from Boston who drove to Tallahassee to meet me over Thanksgiving in 1999?  Yeah.  Well.  The night he was to arrive, I had to work.  He was 'supposed' to have been arriving around the time I got off work, and in true form, I had neglected to tidy up my place and wouldn't have time to do it when I got home.  I called in for back up.  I asked Hillary if she would mind swinging by my place to make it look good and run a load or 20 to the laundry mat for me.  She obliged.

Let me give you some background information.   I had just acquired (or rather charged on my Citibank card) an 8 week old Labrador retriever.  I thought it would be 'fun' to have a dog.  I lived in a 500sq foot space with terrazzo floors decorated with randomly cut leftover carpet scraps I had scrounged from a store.  Needless to say my attempts at getting the carpeted look with scraps, looked pretty, well, sCRAPpy.

The 'pup', MARLEY, had an uncontrollable bladder problem.  (CAN YOU IMAGINE?).  I couldn't keep up with the amount of piss he dumped into those carpet scraps.  It was pretty bad.  And I sort of well, got used to the 'rings'.  Keep in mind, I was 20.  My biggest priority was looking good on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.  It was NOT cleaning up after a puppy.  Which I did, half-assed.

So.  When I got home later that night, I walked through the door to find Hillary, sweating, hair matted in a tank top and her little FSU shorts (I'm sure) on her hands and knees scrubbing with a toothbrush (practically) a small, final, corner of a carpet scrap.

She was pissed.  And she was over-piss.  And while I had not requested carpet cleaning on my little list of things to do, she had cleaned every square inch of piss and remnant shat crumbles, from my little stank apartment.  That day became Hallmark in our friendship.  And if you ever ask her how well she knows me, the first thing out of her mouth will be 'oh I know the bitch, I cleaned dog piss out of her carpet'.

   

What a trooper you are Hillary!  We just love you to shat pieces.

Note To Self

When in Santiago, walk.

This is just the sort of shit I need to be reading before Finance and I head off for our trip around the world.