He Tweets!

One of the reasons I no longer blog is that I tweet. Twitter takes care of my need to vent. Twitter is the place for news and politics. Every political writer I admire is on twitter and I can follow their tweets whether they follow me or not.  But what amazes me is that often they follow me back. Another thing I've noticed about twitter is that news breaks hours faster on twitter than it does on the broadcast news.  If you hear it on TV, it's old news.

Most of my blogger friends are there too, and/or on facebook. You guys were the ones who nagged me onto facebook. Now I've been called a friend whore. I can't help it. When Ezra Klein friended me I was hooked.

Anyway, Tom called.  Now he tweets.  He's catching on fast.

I'm still agonizing over the Hook for the book. It's the hardest thing I've ever tried to write. Should be only a sentence or so. A very good short paragraph. Impossible. I'll keep trying.

See you on twitter.

Love,
Peg

Dear Mystery Caller

Tom, how is it you only call when I'm not home and I only leave home once a week or so? That seems damn near statistically impossible given the extremity of my isolation. Hardly anybody knows I exist back here, so deep is my cover. I could die and not be missed for weeks. Yet only when I leave the house to go to the library and then straight to the grocery store do you call and leave a cryptic message with a phone number that's supposedly in Costa Rica so we can talk about "interesting things" (and god knows, I'd love nothing more). But when I call that number, some gringo with no hint of an accent, answers and says, he is "not Tom" and "no this is not Tom's number" and "no, Tom doesn't live here," and "no," he doesn't know Tom so stop calling. What's up with that? Why the bogus number? You've done it twice? I've redialed the caller ID number off the phone just in case I didn't hear your voice message correctly but I still get the same slightly impatient gringo with a voice so close to the same timbre as yours but without any of the warmth or musicality as yours. What is going on at that phone number? Call me at night. I'm always home then. I never go out after dark. If I don't answer then you can safely assume I am dead and stop calling.  Either that or I forgot to take the phone into the bathroom with me.

PS
I tweet. We could meet up there for a 140 character chat. Surely a with-it guy like you has a twitter account. If not twitter, how about Facebook? Send me an email. A blog comment? Anything. Just don't call during the daytime when I'm not at home and leave another bogus phone number please.

Stasis

I should do a little research and see if this lassitude, this almost dormancy is cyclical.  I have lost the will to write anything longer than a comment or tweet.  Has Twitter ruined me?  Perhaps.  But I was cranking out posts at a rate of two a day for much of my first year on Twitter, so I can't really put this all off on Twitter.  And truth be told, I'm even neglecting Twitter.

I don't feel well.  It's just the same old stuff. My platelet count is down again.  I'll bet my cholesterol is up again.  My colon is fine for now, but knowing me and how little water I'm naturally inclined to drink, it won't be fine for long.  The only time in my life as an adult I didn't eat healthy was during the worst of the time of caring for my heinous and demented mother.  There came a point I just didn't have the energy for cooking, so I lived on cereal and Budget Gourmet.  But those days are long past.  And I've been eating healthy for five years now.  I don't walk far enough or long enough, but I'm working on it.  There, so much for my health.

I suspect my lassitude has more to do with political fatigue and the too fast ending of long days.  I'm sensitive to short days.  I need sunlight and time.  Winter is coming and now I have work to do outside.  I've neglected the yard this year.  I haven't finished enlarging the path and patio here from the little house to the front house.  I didn't realize how much Ms M did to make the front of the house look good.  I hardly ever venture out front except to pick up mail or coming and going with Marley when we walk.  I have set water several times to find it turned off by one of the young men in the front house.  They think half an hour is plenty.  Not for trees, it isn't.  I haven't felt well enough to mow, but then when you hardly ever water, the lawn doesn't grow much.

I have cut the Iris, pulled vines out of trees, raked the pine needles, trimmed the mint.  I will cut the Vinca from the paved paths, pull the bulbs from the beds too close to the house.  I will re pot house plants getting ready to bring them inside.  But what I cannot do is write.  Not for the time being.  I will wait for the leaves to turn and fall and then I will rake.

I Suffer From A Lack of Passion...

It feels like battle fatigue.  I had a form of that growing up and it never quite ran away. 

I look back at that sentence and my first impulse is to fix it, but that Freudian quality is just what I'm talking about.  I thought it would be easier after I recovered from being my mother's caregiver, but the financial disaster her illness created for me is still (six years later) rippling out into the rest of my life. And it makes me feel like selling my jewels to keep the farm.  Instead I sold the farm to keep the farm.  This is the magic of the Reverse Mortgage.  Next, if I can find that top hat, I might try a rabbit trick.

The book I wrote, The Narcissist,  is about my nightmarish relationship with my strange mother.  I thought when I finished it things would change.  I now wonder if I can't write a query letter because I'm not done with the book yet.  Does it need a rewrite?  Why can't I write a synopsis?  What's the book about again?

I felt a few moments jubilation when I thought I finally figured out the device to bring the narrative into the first person present tense, to hold the story together, to give it a focus, to keep it in the moment, to give it life.  I did that last rewrite and thought I was finished.  But then the next step would have been to write a query letter and a synopsis.  I'd have had to pick a genre, and sell it like cereal.  Is it my desire to be discovered and thus forgo all the grubby work of finding an agent and getting published?  Oh fiddle de de.  Am I just a dabbler?

I did have a Scarlett O'Hara moment, thinking "I'll think about that tomorrow" the last time I pondered the Query quandary and then promptly followed my bliss into a flirtation with a man I've never met (nor ever will) which temporarily revived my libido and was cause for some slightly reckless solitary celebration and that turned into the first six chapters of a new book.

Then someone talked me into joining Facebook.  I wish I knew which one of you to blame for this time-sucking obsession but it's the reason I can't writing anything except the occasional comment.  It isn't Twitter's fault this time.  Facebook has me stalking the great news story and friending my favorite reporters.  It's Facebook's fault. 

At about the time I joined up, Fairlane (a man who used to scare me) asked me to contribute to a new blog, Black Magpie Theory.  I kind of worshipped Fairlane from afar, years ago (how sick is that to worship a man who scares you) so my ego made me say "yes" without giving much real thought to it.  (I think some version of this is what was wrong with all my relationships with men.)  And then insecurity set in.  And then the invitation became a meeting, and then the deadline became a reality.  I couldn't meet my deadlines.  Other writers (like Lisa and Tengrain) said it better, and I wasn't posting much on my blog either.  You know the rest.  I'm not writing. 

When will the dry spell end?  Your guess is as good as mine.

JEEZUS H CHRIST! PAT BUCHANAN SAID SOMETHING SMART!

I swear it's true, I was taking a smoke break and watching Andrea Mitchell because Rachel Maddow was on.  Then not more than a few minutes later Andrea had Pat Buchanan and Bob Shrum on in order to... I don't know, maybe balance the awesome intelligence of Rachel?  I tend to try not to pay too much attention to anything Pat Buchanan says, since I end up screaming at my TV machine and scaring my dog.  Nothing scares the cat.. 

So, this is the smart thing Pat Buchanan said: "bla bla bla...the eight years of Bush were a disaster for the economy and he shipped millions off jobs to China...bla bla bla"  I put those bla bla blas in there because something stupid and racist must have either preceded or followed those words or both.  But I swear on my cat Bob's life that Pat Buchanan said something smart.  I think I might have given several people on Twitter and Facebook a heart attack or a stroke.  Several people suggested I was dreaming again.

Last time I took a nap when I woke up gay and lesbian citizens were given back their civil rights; Prop H8 was ruled Unconstitutional!  At least until some fuckwad with millions of $$$$ from the Mormon Church tries to take their civil rights away again.  'Cause that's how we roll in the land of the free, and the home of the brave.  I know I was really young the first time I heard the words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,^[72] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"  So here's the deal, my Creator was my heinous mother and my crazy father.  It doesn't necessarily mean "God"  "Unalienable Rights" means we're born with them and they can never be taken away.  The word "Men" is archaic, in this sense, since women weren't considered much more than chattel at the time, but things have changed and now I can vote and own property and have all the rights and bla bla bla.   And if marrying the one you love isn't in pursuit of happiness, what is?  It's no guarantee of happiness.  I know, I've tried it many times and failed.  And I'm just sure someone is thinking some snarky thing about blow jobs or football or Jack Daniels or new shoes.  But you know what I mean.

So I'm thinking, I should nap more often.

One Night of Missed Pills Equals Two Lost Days, So Far...

It doesn't take much to topple this bipolar person from her delicate balance.  I've worked very hard to achieve "normal."  Normal is for me a very hard-won balancing act.  I teeter here, on the balance beam of sanity, a bit wobbly but still standing. One missed dose of antidepressant and the two mood stabilizers made me stay up all night and spend yesterday watching old movies and lying in bed trying to stay out of trouble.  I tried to tweet a bit, write a place holder post, and clean up my dresser, but I couldn't type.  Words tumbled out like letter salad.  I now think I know what it must feel like to be truly dyslexic, the brain moving like lightning, too fast for the fingers to keep up.  My one little cleaning project expanded as I moved the mess on top of my dresser from one surface to another, expanding chaos rather than taming it.

Today I thought I'd be back to "normal," but I'm slow and disinclined to do anything but stay out of trouble.  Monday is a day I usually grocery shop, but I'm not inclined to trust myself to stay out of trouble in a store of any kind.  Shopping is potentially dangerous.  And I'm not in desperate need of anything yet.  I can feed myself today.  I have plenty of dog food.  Nobody needs a treat, so sending myself off to the treat store is just flirting with disaster.  If I really want to see what shopping is all about for me, I'll clean the cupboard and fridge.  I could probably feed a family of four for a month on what I have stashed away.  I'll thaw something for dinner.  I know from a cursory glance that I have ham steak, pork chops, rib eye steak, pot roast, ground lamb and more.  In my pantry I have rice, potatoes,  grits, cereal, two back-up jars of mayonnaise; what the hell do I need?  I have greens for salad, cabbage for slaw.  I have honey yogurt and blueberries.  I will not starve.

I'd love to work outside, but the temperature is climbing toward the high 90s so I'm going to spend another day just chillin'.  If my brain were in good functioning order I'd read all day, but a page of words is like trying to read word-salad.  Typing is easier today, but still not as natural as it should be.  I could retweet all day on twitter, but I'd have nothing original to add to the conversation, so I'll give it a break for one more day.  The world won't wobble off it's axis without me.

Twitter and My Bipolar Disorder

I woke up this morning feeling like the air was the weight and density of molasses.  I felt like depression had claimed me and as I sat on the toilet I thought the next thing I should do is call my therapist and ask for an antidepressant change.  But first I got coffee, slammed back a hand full of pills, and then the tall boy's girlfriend came out to visit the dogs.  She's very sweet and smart.  I love the energy these young people have.  She's working on a studying film making at the U. (I was a film student there a year or two after the program began).  They're having another dinner party this weekend.  I heartily approve.  When she left the phone rang.  It was my friend Esther.  Talking with her cheered me up even though we both just complained about one thing and another.  She's far more cheerful and optimistic than I, but she'd had a pipe burst in her bathroom and needed a plumber, quick.  I have a handyman who can do it all and I gave her his number.

I checked the weather forecast and realized I'd need to mow the lawn, and soon.  Snow is forecast for this weekend in the foothills and higher.  It won't stick, but still, it's almost summer.  But when I stopped to check my email and look in on twitter I realized today is Friday.  Fridays are celebrated on twitter with the hashtag #FF or #ff which means Follow Friday or FollowFriday.  I had a bunch of follow Friday messages.  I know it sounds very silly, but it's a way of letting your favorites know you appreciate them.  So there are people who think of me as a favorite. People say good night to each other on twitter.  People listen in and then let you know they wish you well, or hope things get better soon.  People encourage one another and flirt with one another and tease each other, even as we tweet our reaction to politics and disasters.  Even as we pass on breaking news stories.  I've heard more news reported first there, often hours before I hear it on MSNBC or NPR.  It's always exciting and interesting on twitter.  I follow some very intelligent, funny and passionate people on twitter. They inform and entertain me. Life is sometimes more real on twitter than it is in the meatworld.  I love the written word.  Twitter is all about concise use of language. Twitter is pithy at it's best.  Roger Ebert is really great on twitter.  Can you feel how visceral my reaction to a dose of twitter is? Speak the written word. Forget rules. Write like you talk.  I'm off and running.

So I'm no longer mired in the molasses like atmosphere of depression.  In fact I may be rapid-cycling a bit.  A transitional position on the bipolar roller coaster of tripping from pole to pole.  It's hard to be around someone who is rapid-cycling because they will be motor-mouthed and oblivious of the needs of others.  But on twitter I can have conversations with ten or twenty people about many different topics.  It's a fast fast world on twitter. Perfect for the woman rapidly swinging from pole to pole of her bipolar disorder.  "Disorder" is such a great word for it.  When one is "rapid-cycling" there is very little order and what order there is can be smashed in a second by the next mood swing.

When I went outside to mow the lawn the lawnmower gas cap was missing.  The tank was empty too.  This made me angry at myself, since I was the last person, the only person to use the lawnmower,  After I filled the gas tank I went in the house and bitched about the missing gas cap on twitter.  When I came in after mowing the lawn there was a message to me with a warning from a tweeter about getting a replacement for the missing gas cap, with a command to do it soon. I'd used tinfoil to fashion a temporary cap.  There's a risk of flash fire when you're mowing sans gas cap.  Good thing I'd finished.  And I won't use it again until I get a replacement.  Thanks, friends from twitter.  You changed my attitude and helped me keep from sinking into the quicksand of depression.  Or maybe my drugs are working better than I thought.  Maybe both. 

I seem alright tonight. But who knows about tomorrow.  I could wake up unable to pull myself out of the quicksand, unable to tell the difference between being tired and being depressed, because depression often begins like any other illness.  It aches all over, it hurts to move, light is too bright, the dark might be the only comfort.  It might be impossible to speak without slurring words.  It might last an hour or a year.

It's an intricate dance we bipolar people perform with all the passion we can muster.  Please understand, those of you who are not afflicted with this monster of an illness, but live with someone who is, that, in as much as everything is in one's head, this too could be said to be "all in my head."  Ok, I'll give you that.  It's all in my head.  But no one can simply snap out of an illness.  Only the illness can snap you out of it, and the illness can turn you into a tireless, cheerful, organizing wizard or it can turn you into a hot tempered shouting, sobbing mess so fast there seems to be no precipitating event.  Would anyone choose to feel this way if they could choose the way they felt?  Certainly not, especially if one lives in a disapproving and shaming family.  It's painful to know that those you love find you embarrassing or think you're lazy and self indulgent.

There are times when this illness is wonderful.  It bestows a certain access to a world of creativity that I never want to be cured of.  Sometimes, in a blissful moment, I think I would choose to be this way, but then I live alone. I can do what I please on my schedule.  I think for me it is easier.  There is no one shaming me for my mental illness.  There is no one calling me lazy, moody, too loud, acting crazy.  There is no one yelling at me to "SNAP OUT OF IT!"

From Blogging to Twitter

There are moments in life that change everything, and people who are the catalyst for such change. Phillip is one of those people for me. David and Rachel are another two.

In late 2007 I was working on writing fiction on my old desktop computer. I couldn't get my computer to do the things I wanted it to, so my friend Larry, a retired philosophy professor at Portland State, put me in touch with his favorite student and friend Phillip, the man who understands all things having to do with computers and the internet.

Phillip worked with me for awhile trying to get my old computer to do what I need it to do and finally insisted I get an Imac. He said it was the best computer for a writer. He told me it's a more intuitive technology and more suited to the kind of work I was doing. He found the best deal for me and I bought the Imac and had it shipped to him. He set it up for me, loading it with every program I could ever want or need, plus a large collection of great movies. Then he shipped it to me and talked me through the set up. He is and always will be my Administrator.

During early January of 2008 my New York friends, Rachel and David, were in town for a visit and dropped by. They were delighted with my new computer and decided I must blog. I didn't know what a blog was. It was explained to me and within minutes I was a blogger.

It was the beginning of the political season and the field of candidates for the Presidential election was narrowing. I have always been a political junkie, so politics was what I blogged about. And low and behold I gained a small but growing following.

Now almost two years later I have a blog archive of 1,473 posts on Utah Savage plus six other blogs I manage and contribute to. I have a Netvibes account. I post my photo albums to my Picasa web album. I've received twenty two awards from other bloggers. I learned what a meme is. I became a blogging fool in the space of two years. I became a member of a blogging community. It was one of the other bloggers in my circle who first discovered Twitter. I took to it like a duck to water and before you know it I was neglecting my friends and ignoring my blog.

Now when I get up in the morning the first thing I do is tap the space key on my computer as I pass it on the way to the bathroom. And Twitter is the first place I go once I've let the dogs out and have my first cup of coffee in my hand. I have spent as much as ten hours at a time on Twitter and I've all but stopped visiting my blogging buddies unless I spot them on twitter. Time speeds by. It took two years to gain a following of a hundred other bloggers. It has taken only a few short months to gain a following of over 1,000 on twitter. Now I seldom see my blogging buddies on Twitter. They have not been bitten by the twitter bug. But I'm a full blown twitteraholic.

My Blog Is Fading Away

I haven't given you much of interest lately. And my blog roll just makes me feel guilty. My two year anniversary is coming up in December or January, I can't remember anymore.

I've been talking about my novel forever it seems, and now it's time to get serious. I can't write here and keep focused on the story. I've disassembled a linear first person narrative story and now I have to figure out how to write it anew in a more interesting way. I have to sneak up on you with this story or it's just too awful, relentlessly painful. I insist on keeping the major events intact, but they will be revealed in a present time, mostly in Santa Barbara. See, I can't even write a decent placeholder.

And to be honest watching my numbers climb on twitter while they dwindle here is not a great incentive to be prolific here. I like the immediacy of the conversation on twitter. I like seeing you there and discovering a new you that I never saw in your blogging. I'm not dismantling Utah Savage, but I am going to be posting less frequently.

I've found lots of agents on twitter and some of them are on my blog roll. I've found publications that are having contests or are asking for submissions from poetry to the novella. I need to focus my attention there and start getting serious. I'm old and time might be running out.

I've moved most of my writing to this place, relearned to write here, on blogger. So I'll keep writing here, but mostly on the fiction for now. Feel free to look in and see whether I'm making a story better or worse. And if you want to start a conversation leave a comment here or find me on twitter. It was fun while it lasted.

Life Like Twitter

What would it be like if we all said our tweets to real people in the real world? Watch this. This is probably how it would be.

I'm Not Feeling Well

It's funny that I was feeling well until I saw the oncology hematologist Friday. I thought it was only a one time thing that my platelet count was low. But it's been the last two tests (6 months apart) that showed a low platelet count. Now that I know it's been going on for awhile, I'm starting to worry a little. After my exam yesterday and talking to my new doctor, it looks like it might be more serious than I thought. How powerful is the mind that once I realizes it might be a more serious problem I start to feel ill. They took more blood to do other tests, more specific tests. It's now a waiting game to know whether it's bad or really bad.

Tomorrow at the crack of dawn I have to haul my ass out of bed to go get an ultra-sound of my liver and spleen. I have to do this fasting. This is tantamount to torture for me. No coffee with loads of milk and a bit of sugar? No dallying with the dogs? Out to pee and then breakfast for them and then I'm gone for most of the day. I have to drop my car off in the AM for safety inspection and to have it winterized. Then a friend is giving me a ride to the ophthalmologists for the appointment I should have made two years ago.

Again, I apologize for not visiting you at your blog to read and comment. I'm still rewriting the novel and tweeting. I've found that twitter is a powerful tool for lobbying politicians for healthcare reform. Now that I'm old and less inclined to do the boots on the ground work of real protesting, along comes twitter to make it possible to demonstrate online. It's a powerful tool. Not a social networking tool, but a power to the people network for societal change. I resist the "friending" thing. If I talk to you on twitter, your part of my network. You're all special to me, so "friending" seems silly to me. It is the friending aspect of FaceBook that turns me off, like high school cliques. Twitter is not like that. And I love the challenge of saying something meaningful in short bursts. I think in many ways this can only help with writing in general.

For the few of you who do still stop by, I thank you from the bottom of my shriveled little heart.

Yes, I'm Still Here

I don't have burn out or any other loss of desire or time. I'm just working elsewhere. I've been rewriting the novel. It's an entirely new frame for the story. So much of the material is written, I still need to work on almost all of the chapters. I'm now doing that at the novel site. It is no longer called Maggy. It's now called The Narcissist. I'm begging for feedback so if you feel like reading, please let me know whether this is working or not.

I apologize again for not visiting you. For the time being the muse is with me, and I need to take advantage the opportunity to work with her again. I'll be back. If not here, I'll see you on twitter. Don't be shy.

Thank You, Ms Case

I've had 99 followers for quite awhile now, and then yesterday or the day before, Ms Case became my 100th follower. I don't know you Ms Case, but thank you. I hope as a follower you'll be kind enough to start leaving a comment now and then. I'd like to throw you a party.

I've been lazy about writing posts lately. I have some terrible things going on in my little life--my friend Z, who has lung cancer (never been a smoker) has been having a terrible time. She finished chemo and radiation but seemed about to die of the treatment. Yesterday when I talked to her I realized that she might not have long to live, and whatever free time I have to spare should be spent with her. So today I'll be with her.

I do want to let you know that even in Utah, the reddest little theocracy in the Union, with only four days preparation and a very loose network of MoveOn members and this little tweeter we managed to get 350 people together for a demonstration in favor of a public option for healthcare reform. Those of you who know me well, know how I hate to go out in public. It's been years, probably three or four years, since I went out after 5 PM. I think of myself as someone who pretty much hates "people" and likes to avoid them as much as possible. But this crowd was part of my networking and we are in the same boat, so to speak. We are progressives in a state full of reactionaries. The Utah State Capitol is a gorgeous building in a lovely setting. And it was on the Capitol steps where we had our demonstration. I took my camera and have a few photos that aren't blurry to prove that we had a big crowd with homemade signs and little kids, old folks (even older than I) people in wheelchairs and on crutches and walkers, as well as young adults. I loved every one of them. I loved them for their commitment to healthcare reform and their willingness to make their commitment visible.

Twitter is an amazing place if you're trying to pull people together. Word passes from network to network like wildfire on twitter. I'm followed by 600 people there as well a Utah news source. So by tweeting for three days to Utah Progressive and Utah News we had a big crowd and news coverage on KSL, the most Mormon of the local news outlets, as well as Fox news the most reactionary news source. It didn't hurt that I called all four local news channels just before Nick picked me up. If you are not a member of MoveOn.org, might I suggest that you join. It's a very good organization.

I'm loosing readers as fast as Z is loosing pounds. She's over 5' 7" and weights 100 lbs. Please know that at some point I'll be back to writing posts on an obsessive basis, but for now, Z gets my time, and you get crumbs here. When not with Z, I'll be trying to salvage my book. But just because I'm not making the rounds to visit all of you, doesn't mean I'm not thinking about you and wondering what I'm missing.

I might tweet for a minute or two, but that doesn't mean I don't love you best. I'd love to combine both worlds--all you bloggers would make great tweeters, but so far most of you haven't taken to it in a big way. I see La Belette Rouge now and then. Darkblack tweets once in awhile. Liberality is out there tweeting what she's listening to on blip. Where are the rest of you? I probably know what Randal's doing--watching sports and/or pleasuring his wife one way or another. But most of you started tweeting and them gave up on it. For some odd reason, I think of it as Facebook for grown-ups. I love it. I can find networks of politicos, reporters, other writers, literary agents, and publishers. It's one of the rare places I feel completely at home and in my element.

Catching Up

I've been missing in action again. You may not even have noticed, but if you have, I apologize. I'm posting the last two chapters of the novel, Maggy. Then I need to practice writing a query letter. One of the good things about twitter is that there are a bunch of literary agents on twitter; I'm following several of them. And it seems the big hurdle for most writers seeking an agent is learning the art of the query letter. So I'll soon start practicing my query letter writing. Seems to be part pitch, part bio, part appeal to the ego of the agent. I can write a novel, a short story, a poem, but a pitch? We'll see.

Yesterday I had atrial fibrillation and hinky blood pressure. In the past I didn't feel the atrial fibrillation, but yesterday it put me down like an old dog. I was ashen and exhausted, and completely uninspired. It was one more day in a month of extremely high temperatures, so as well as sick, I was limp from the heat. I promised my neighbor that if I woke up today with hinky blood pressure and the stuttering pulse, I'd call my doctor. Well, I seem fine today, but still called my doctor's office to let her know about yesterday's episode. I see her in a couple of weeks anyway. I think the stress of having three girlfriends who are so seriously ill has stressed me to the limit. It's as if I can't bear the fact that I am going to be left alone, alive and very old. Some would say this is better than the alternative, but I'm not so sure. It was always my plan to exit early. Yet here I am older than I ever imagined I'd be.

I'm going to be following the healthcare debate very carefully. I wish to god I were very very rich so I could contribute several million to anyone who could defeat Orin Hatch. That old prissy prick needs to retire. He is as right-wing as one gets, and completely in the pocket of the insurance industry. Harry Reid needs to go too. Harry is about as spineless as they come. I think Harry's problem is that he's a Mormon, and as a Mormon he ought to be a republican. He reminds me of Joey Leiberman. He's straddling the fence of his religious values and his political affiliation and it's giving him a wedgie. So I'd pump some money into bringing down Harry as well. Then there are the "blue dog democrats." I'd start going after them with my discretionary millions. Boy is it fun to dream those kind of dreams. How nice it would be to have the money to influence the outcome of political races. United Healthcare is going to be going full-out to fight the possibility of a public option. Do not let those criminals change the debate. United Healthcare and it's "think tank" the Lewin Group is still rich enough to pour hundreds of millions into fighting a public option. Do not let them influence you. Please write and call your elected representatives to let them know where you stand on the healthcare debate. Sorry if that sounds like a lecture, but this is important. I have medicare, you should too. It's the best medical coverage I ever had, and I used to pay $1,000 a month to United Healthcare for shitty coverage.

Z Is Feeling Better

Z had her first chemo treatment Monday. I was scheduled to pick her up at 2:30 but she called at 2:00 to tell me to pick her up at 4:30. Just as I was looking for my keys, she called again to tell me she wouldn't be finished until 5:30 and her youngest son would be off work and able to pick her up. She sounded very tired and very impatient.

This morning I called her when I got up to find out if there was a schedule for today that I needed to be ready for. She sounded strong and bright. She said she was feeling much better today. I am amazed and ask her a couple of questions about the chemo. She says, she loves her assigned nurse. Aside from being boring, it wasn't that bad. She says their old family friend J will take her to all her radiation treatments. And all she'll need me for is to pick her up from chemo, one day a week. I'm amazed and relieved and so happy to hear her feeling alive again.

Now I have a crashing stress release headache. I know, it doesn't sound fair, but I'm so relieved I've been giddy all day. I tweeted throughout the Sotomayer testimony today on CSpan. I have eaten sensibly so far, but there is still a bit of cake and plenty ice cream.

Rachel Maddow Tweeted This To Me (okay and some others...)

Rachel Maddow and I are now tweeting at my place. I just woke up at noonish, got my coffee, took the dogs outside, fed them, and then checked twitter. I may have died and gone to heaven. My first visible tweet of the day is Ms Maddow's and it's amazing. Check this out. I know you've seen Jonathan Mann on The Daily Show or Colbert, and various news shows, but now he's hit his stride and todays song is...?
Waterboarding.

After linking to the song, she links us to the lyrics. Ms Maddow knows how to get the facts straight and even when you're crying about the lyrics, you're amazed at the talent of the singer and then horrified at what the Bush Administration gave us, and how very much Crazy Unka Dick loves, loves, loves justifying his torture program and how very very very effective it was. Keep talking Unka Dick. Maybe you'll get tortured someday. Well, I can dream, can't I?