"Warring Ideals in One Dark Body"

I appreciate not having my time wasted like the folks at the pizza joint who took 20 minutes to serve me a single slice. That means treating us all like we're big critters and can read. The instructors at at CORE didn't go over every page in our considerable packets of information, which I think sets the proper tone since we're talking about a degree of self-sufficiency here.

( Here are a list of disasters in Oakland since 1983. )

There's more to planning than I could reasonably address in one post, however, there are some important points to mention just in case I'm not around to ask at the time.

( OK, I admit that I think about this stuff in a way that is not normal. )

Roomie came home complaining of a tick bite. "Did you save the tick for identification?" I asked.

"Uh, no. Should I do that?"

"Yes. You and the tick need to go to the doctor."

"Even though Northern California is a low risk area?"

"Even though. It's likely nothing to worry about, but y'all need to be tested."

She dug through our used floss and tissues in the bathroom waste basket, and I gave her a film canister into which she put the remains.

Turns out it's a Western Black-Legged Tick, and there were still pieces of it inside (E-yew!). She gets antibiotics. In the face of my EMT Practice Exam results which indicate the need for extensive review (except for pediatrics), practical skill application is comforting.

I think ticks are little demons who've come to our dimension. I find them to be possibly the most vile things that we share the planet with. I ask God*, "Aren't republicans, leeches, centipedes, and pimp n' ho party enthusiasts enough?" God laughs at me.

Anything that can go into stasis for years and wake up when something warm comes by inspires a gut level revulsion. (This also explains some of my contempt for the DNC, but I'll park that thought just now in favor of a round of DOOM3 to satisfy the urge to hunt demons, zombies, and wankers.)



*Yeah, I'm agnostic, but I still ask.

Oakland critters, this is the schedule for free training in Emergency Preparedness. I'm going, because I'm a freak and need freak in the mornin', freak in the evening...I'm just drawn that way. I've also got it on good authority that this is pretty solid training no matter what your previous experience or skill levels might be.

From their website:

CORE is a free training program for individuals, neighborhood groups and community-based organizations in Oakland. The underlying premise is that a major disaster will overwhelm first responders leaving many citizens on their own for the first 72 hours or longer after the emergency.

CORE teaches self-reliance skills and helps neighborhoods establish response teams to take care of the neighborhood until professional emergency personnel arrive.

Benefits

• Develop self-confidence and peace of mind as you learn practical information and learn hands-on life-saving skills
• Build community as you develop and share your skills and resources to protect yourself, your family and home, and your neighborhood
• Create a lifeline between your family and neighbors, and the City’s emergency responders

CORE training will help you increase the safety and well-being of your family and neighborhood.

More information is available from Citizen of Oakland Respond to Emergencies which is run through the City of Oakland, Oakland Fire Department, and the Office of Emergency Services.

San Francisco people, you go to Neighborhood Emergency Response Team.

Thinka 'bout it. For real.

Merritt Community College wants me to take freshman English because they don't believe that my University of Minnesota English Composition course (a requirement for my Bachelor's degree) is as rigourous as theirs. I disagree.

I jumped through their hoops for Intro to Psych, Interpersonal Communications, and Intro to Algebra for nursing prereqs. I've been treated rudely, ill-advised, and outright lied to in more than one of Peralta's advising departments. Now this.

They did convince me, without even trying, that I need to throw everything I have at getting funding, even if it's a bank loan, to go to a real school with a real academic advising department. If someone's going to condescend to me, then I want it to be by people smarter than the "advisor" I just spoke with. Especially if I can have a more reputable degree at the end of it. Samuel Merritt at $53,000 a year or trying to get into UCSF's almost-impossible-to-get-into Master's program begins to look better and better, even if it means I have to take another Anatomy and Physiology class (because they won't accept the courses from Merritt, and I think I now understand why.)

Last night:
Whenever I go to PPO, I want to runaway and write. Such talent, truly.  Meliza Banales and Juba Kamalka dropped my jaw, and the whole show was tight, tight, tight.

I like it when the people I adore shed their clothing in public and say all kinds of smart and funny things. And I like being in rooms with many friends and lovers and their friends and their lovers, more-or-less in an equilibrium with each other, even if I'm not personally in homeostasis. I like kissing and letting my eyes settle on the people I find pleasing and feelings of affection and being held securely. It's reassuring to not feel the need to be reassured.

I also like learning about what other people like and seeing what brings a glow to their eyes whether it's football or the gift of submission.


Sick and tired of sick and tired:
I've been struggling with illness and exhaustion, and I'm so used to it by now that it doesn't matter. That works right up until I fall over. I haven't yet, so fuck it.

Sort of.

I did cancel being a medical volunteer at Folsom, and I'm sad about that. I seem to have run out of reserve. Sounds like a spoon in an empty jar.

I am treating a raging yeast infection, complete with fists full of white, yeasty, squid-like things, bad enough that all I could do was point a fan at my nads and lay there for a couple of days and resist the urge to scratch and claw myself bloody. I have a lot of brain doodling around that. What the fuck do you mean, Ms. Advice Nurse that you've never heard of acidolphilus? What do you mean make an appointment because internal medicine won't see me for urgent care to be sure it's actually a yeast infection? Why isn't Diflucan available over the counter? Get sunshine on it how? Why don't you know if Walgreens cheap-ass Perfection [snort] tampons could be causing it? Cause I never have good luck with the cheap tampons--I'm not kidding. Target-brand too.

But in all fairness also, until someone can give me specific strengths and amounts of acidolphilus, boric acid, garlic, yogurt or whatever other "natural" remedies people like to recommend, I'm taking those particular interventions out of my jump bag because I've started thinking in terms like actions, contraindications, dosage. I need to know how much to use for how long and how to know when to stop or if I've used too much. I need a lab, in other words, and some clinical trials. Fuck the FDA. Also, Mr. Walgreens Security Guard, really, I just threw the damn University of Minnesota sweatshirt on to wobble over here at 5:30 in the mornin; I don't care if you're a Cal fan or really what your problem is that you're giving me the hairy eyeball, dammit, open the door and give me some Monistat that I'm overdrawing my bank account for. And by the way, health reform NOW, goddamit.


Bio-fam:
For those of you asking how my family in Atlanta are, the answer is everyone's fine; everyone's houses are fine. It just sucks to see places you've been and worked underwater. More places, I mean.


Break-ups:
Hurt.


Work:
Thanks to my job as a research assistant, I've learned to lie much better.

I struggle with dueling philosophies and seek a naked, dogged strength somewhere.

"Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the evil which I condemn."--Henry David Thoreau

"I know what good morals are, but you're supposed to disregard good morals when you're living in a crazy, bad world. If you're in hell, how can you live like an angel? You're surrounded by devils, trying to be an angel? That's like suicide."--Tupac Shakur


School/EMT:
I'm tired and broke and angry and feel like I've got a lot of fishhooks in my skin that pull tighter and tighter. Call the wah-mbulance.

That said, I just have to turn in some paperwork to be cleared to take my national exam to become a certified EMT.

It's a few hundred to test, for the background check, the piss test, to register in the county, to take the driver's test. I don't know when I'll be able to afford it. Shelling out testing/registration money for the thrilling possibilities of a $9/hr job where I'm putting myself in a good position to reinjure my back (on top of the $2500 for the course itself that I'm paying off)... yeah, I don't know. The upside is if I can scrape up enough money working two part-time jobs, I might be able to take a phlebotomy class in spring and maybe get on as an ER Technician for a little better money and better path.

Double-take: Did I just say the upside is maybe I can work two-part time jobs? >-(

Anatomy and Physiology II is fine. I took two tests, have a study partner who seems like a good queer ally as well as honestly going for it rather than settling for learning "enough to get by" like many of my classmates. I need to review the section on the inner ear and how it relates to balance (is that a little joke for me Universe? Oh, Universe, you're such a card.)

I surprised myself by having thoughts of giving up this whole fucking nursing idea. But I can't. Because I have these pictures in my head and these songs in my heart. Sometimes the songs are sirens, and sometimes the pictures are gravel, mosaic paths all leading me to here and now. I know what I have to do, I just don't know how to do it.

When I remember who I am and who and what I care about and where we are, it matters less how I am or even what I think about it. All I have to do, all I can do is put one foot in front of the other and keep showing up. Unspoken promises aren't any less valid.

"You have a greater calling.
Answering it is all it takes.
Take a second to hear this
and go back about your day.
Know that laws don't govern us,
we're governed by what we say.
What we think, why we think it, how we handle.
Place no blame, point no fingers, take your aim.

Shoot to kill. The bullshit."--Saul Williams, Pedagogue of Young Gods