Welcome!! How Can We Not Help You Today?

OK, here's the deal.   The local clinic which is very nice and also on California Covered,  the state health care plan for Mexican nationals and welfare moms, or so it seems, is a nice looking place with bizarre Rube Goldberg systems in place.  It is also largely run by Valley girls who up talk.

Up talking is when they make most things sound like a question with the last word up several levels in pitch.  Other times the last word is  low girl growl.  To the uninitiated it is unintelligible.  I'm more uninitiated than not.

This would be a good place for someone doing  doctoral thesis on linguistics.  Another time I'll explore all that might entail.

So, that's the Alpine Clinic.  They took blood at first of April to check for food allergy.  We're almost 100% certain no food allergy is involved.  It takes a lot for me to claim 100% certainty on anything.  True scientists think that way.  Educated egomaniacs will claim, in terms they hope you can't understand, that they are 100% sure of things.  Happens every day.  Beware those people.



The specialist that my ex-primary care provider, the retired veterinarian, recommended, does not even take covered california nonsense.  Blue Cross, Medicare, or cashola.  I'm on the cashola plan.  But I feel like they have really worked with me. It is expensive, but could be worse.  And the other place needs more visits to get anything done, which probably evens the two out in the long run.

All I wanted was to have the blood work info from last month faxed to Coronado.   Of course that involves going in and signing an authorization.  Fine.  I do that.  I give the up talker the pertinent fax info, etc.   She has my stuff on her computer, prints out something then takes it to a device that looks like a fax.  "OK, so it has all been sent?"  "Yea"---managing to create extra syllables with last one up a  fifth.

That's all I need so I leave, but once in the lobby I call Coronado to double check.  No, they have nothing. They refresh it a couple of times.  Nope.

I go back in.  Hola, up-talker, they say it didn't go through.  "Oh I don't have the lab work.  All records are over at administration".   Big cloud above my head appears with giant letters, WTF?

OK. I try some subtle uptalking in case it will help.  "This is really important?"  sounds like  question but is actually a declarative sentence.  Perfect form.  "Oh, I can make a  note for them and they should send it within two weeks?"(again, declarative sentence with interrogatory uptick)

I still had Becky in Coronado on the phone and ended up handing the phone to the valley chick who shamelessly began lying.  "Oh, I was just telling him I'll personally walk it over and you'll have it tomorrow"?.....I pretended not to notice, and told Becky just get Dr Coronado to order whatever tests I need, and assume we may or may not receive the one being held hostage.

So, tomorrow we go pee and bleed and stuff.   I like watching the needle.  It is a little exercise in self control to view it with a clinical eye rather than the emotional approach.

I expect nothing to be wrong with me.  I decided to take that approach.  Assume there is absolutely nothing wrong, and once that is confirmed do all the things that set it off and see if mind over body will work out.

More than one person on the yahoo group had tests done which showed no prob, then months or a year down the line their tests show the issue.  So, a year of having this run their lives, with half their friends, family, and doctors treating them like they are sissy lunatics, and dealing with the hydrophobia problem.  They must have more friends, and spouses than I do who help them out.  Not sure I wouldn't just give up.

Something must be up.  I think my face is fatter, I'm fatter, my color is odd.  Puff.  Kind of puffy.  I'll bet they suggest my only hope is a tropical island with lots of attention from sea bunnies and other females.  Or just one good one.  Now I'm happy again.

The Best has Probably Been Passed Up long The Way

A grown man catches himself as he is almost brought to tears at the mere thought of the shower he must take sometime in the next 12 hours.
Meanwhile we wait for two different people in two different death camps disguised as medical facilities to call back.
There have been more optimistic episodes in my experience.  If only everything was all cleaned up and organized.  Then I'd be OK with all that is.

By the way, what is the alleged reason for states having an office called "Insurance commissioner"?  I'm thinking the real purpose is to facilitate crony commerce.   That is more accurate than saying "crony capitalism", and does not serve the propaganda mills which mis-label because they hate any iota freedom.  The way that black panther guy hated any "iota of a cracker".

Update: 1:11 A.M.:  finally found the nerve to grab a shower, believing it would be worse to wait until morning.  Most of the time these things work better at night.  Still waiting for body to get back to equilibrium.  I can feel it wanting to flash up in arms and legs, moving around like randomly flashing Christmas tree lights.  I feel the heat in my face, but it seems to be easing.  No itch or burn in face, just odd blush feeling.  Now I better get in front of a fan or something.  It helps immediately covering up but maybe a final air dry will help.  I feel it trying to get out of control which is less fun than you might imagine.  If they could control this, it would yield quicker results than water boarding.  OK.  sudden moment of easing up.  The Christmas tree lights are dimming and slowing down.

After seeing pictures fro the ranch event last Monday, and knowing this is not a normal stomach, I will push to get thyroid, liver and some blood issues ruled out.  This is not even close to my normal.  I'll decide on most likely culprits and get those tests first, even if I have to threaten bodily harm to get the incredibly inefficient arrogant medical creeps to cooperate.

It takes a world of total f'ing idiots to have allowed themselves to give up so much autonomy when it comes to ailments.  You cannot try medicines you think will help without costly approval, and sometimes not at all.  You can't get various tests run without getting approval and jumping through hoops.  And, of course, it is expensive.  If they think you have insurance, then they want to run a battery of tests, often not at all relevant to your specific case.

If you think this crime of a healthcare law will fix these issues then you are wrong.  For some situations, some people will come out ahead.  I expect many more to die from the one size fits all approach and the lack of incentive for bureaucrats in charge to do anything but protect their job and grow their agencies.  The VA scandal is a harbinger of things to come.

It was headed this way for awhile.  I have been no fan of the setup ever since things changed for whatever reason.  Not the only factor, but I kind of compare healthcare in terms of pre John Edwards and post John Edwards.

A lot changed when he channeled a baby being born, and promoted junk science to win in court.  But  guess karma caught up to him a little bit.  That is no help to the rest of the world.

I may almost be safe, but I still feel like it could flare up if I'm not careful.  It is abnormal to have to remain as still and inactive as possible to avoid an attack of itching and burning could make one beg for a heavy shot of heroin or morphine if they were available.  This is the main thing that has made me consider drinking--enough alcohol and you pass out and only feel things later.  But I can't do that and I know it will make it worse.

OK.  Its been 30 minutes and all the hints of trouble seem to be receding.  Thanks for letting me babble which actually diverted my mind from how things feel.  You wouldn't think so.

I was thinking, it is good to wish or pray for others to receive the good things you'd like for yourself.  A spiritual axiom I guess.   I thought the best thing I'd wish for you  freedom from sadness and self loathing.  So, then now I am less sad and don't have the loathing of self as much as I did.  Maybe it works. And Maybe I am just too affected in ways to be sad and down on myself.

What causes waves of very cold, clammy skin, yet very warm hands?  That's the herald of a front, so to speak; like cirrus clouds.

Time to Get Something Done

The bizarre physical thing prevented me from doing much work today.  2 hour long attacks.   Blablabla.
Tests are needed to rule out implants placed by aliens, too sexy for my shirt syndrome, and outright  psychotic delusions and hallucinations.

It is highly unlikely that allergy is actually at play.  Just don't accidentally spill a glass of water all over the front of your shirt.  If if you are clever enough to keep spare shirts in your car.  You will find the attack comes within minutes.

Maybe we'll get some response from the medical world. Sold stocks in anticipation of costly tests.  Desperate measures for desperate times.  This is rendering me unable to work or get anything much done.  Anything that involves labor and such. I can read and write without such likelihood of setting off a flare up.

Yesterday it interfered with playing music after a short while of playing.  Had to hide most of the time.  And pace.  Pacing is necessary for coping at those times.

I'm not sure I'd chance a shower right now if you paid me $500.   If you paid $5000, I probably would; knowing I'd curse myself for doing it for the next couple of hours.

It's a challenge, but when I try I can usually get things done.  We'll see.  Ever know a doctor, lawyer or airline pilot whose ego was such that they could see it when you were right and they needed to alter their view?     I haven't noticed that but I used to be a pro at making them think my idea was their idea.   may have lost my touch.  I think they know what I'm up to these days, so they double down on their arrogant efforts to make life unpleasant for people like me.  Bless their hearts..  That's my token of peace.  I'm in no shape to be fighting battles with people or institutions.  I try

Still Hydrophobic

It will probably take awhile to get any further tests done due to low funds, and the insane bureaucracy of everything medical.  But what do you expect?   People have been treating doctors like priests for a long time.  "Give it to me straight, Doc, how long have I got?"  If I were a doctor I might say, "Three seconds" and toss the patient out the window.

Seriously, Doc does not know how long you'll live unless you're obviously taking your final breaths.  Why you bother at that point, who knows.  But the medical profession did not have a stable enough collective ego not to feed this impression of God-like knowledge and vision of the future.

Just like lawyers, they make it a point to create  language of their own, heavily steeped in Latin, with touches of sanskrit thrown in in the form of take home flyers about your unknown, incurable, highly expensive disease.   If they can't fix it, they'll just pretend you only have symptoms they understand.

Since doctors know all, you convince yourself you are crazy, and try to avoid any situation which will shine a light on your difficulty.  You hide with your trouble accepting the less than helpful diagnosis and pills offered by your Doctor/Priest.

For awhile there, beginning in the 70's and maybe earlier, healthcare and diseases became the fastest growing hobby in America.  People loved comparing their batteries of hourly and daily pills.  They loved the regular visits, the attention, the delicious morbidity of their defects.   Pretty exciting stuff.  And something to provide extra structure, and for some, a regular day off of work.  Or maybe full enough disability.  No work, but time to go boating or hiking or drinking all day.

Healthcare hobbyists.  They thrive on the experience.  I can see that.  No one has better drugs than the healthcare industry.  And you ether go through them to get it or they throw you in jail if you go to the unregulated marketplace.

"Doctors orders".   Really?  Come here doll, I'm a Doctor and I have an order or two you need to obey.

My conclusion is that people are incredibly gullible and scared to death of looking stupid.  So when the Doctor says you have aquibaillesiuatrababolitis conundrum and must pay big money regularly to monitor the condition, but we can't actually cure it, and you are to only drink liquids from the left side of glass containers from now on, by golly you do it.

Your kid is not a brat.  Your child is addhd, ocd, dls, rtc, etc.  And most likely asthmatic, and suffering from ptsd due to a difficult birth.  Obviously some people legitimately experience these conditions, but there is far more money in it if we diagnose based on loose subjective, unmeasurable, anecdotal criteria to broaden the market.  We can now sell our drugs and services to 20% or so, rather than the 1% or 2% that scientific tests and diagnosis would provide.

It is a win win win.  We get business, your child becomes more manageable through chemistry, and you have something other than yourself or your child's obnoxivity to blame.  The schools are happy because now your kid conforms to their aberrant one-size-fits-all authoritarian propaganda palace.
Everyone is happy.  Sort of.

Lately being angrily down on religion, other than islam, is a highly popular thing.  But the medical and political worlds get a pass.  If you look at it objectively you will see that a lot of people aspire to priesthood and a metaphysical sense of infallibility.   The medical profession, science paid for through taxes and controlled by Big Brother.  You can eliminate ever church, synagogue and other place of worship, and you will find there is not shortage of priests.  They just opt for another title.  A rose by any other name...

So, I guess we are doomed.  And I may never get any tests done and I will go out with a bang to escape the phobia with which I've been plagued.   But only if my own cures do not work.  I will fix it myself, but I'll be using pills in the process.   I'm as good at trouble shooting as the doctor/priests.  I can use their info and do a better job at solving the problem.

But they do have info I do not have.  I'm just better at working it down.  You can know everything and still be a horrible troubleshooter or problem solver. It is the rule rather than the exception.  That is why things are as they are. We are intimidated and rightly impressed with those who know lots of complicated stuff.  Where it goes wrong is that we assume such knowledge equates to doing the right thing, and knowing how to best use the information.  Mostly it doesn't work like that.

You'd think people would know this.  Especially in academia, yet they are the worst for letting egos override truth and true constructive progress.  A lot of information, experience, and knowledge is there. Ability to put it to best use is not a popular skill.  Ability to obtain government funding and agenda driven grants is very popular, and a skill which has been honed to a fine art over the years.  The driving force in academia is to maintain their egos, and include themselves among the priests who take your money because they are super natural.

This is not to say that higher education isn't great, that few people grasp the real math behind science or much else, and that many great things have been developed and discovered in such institutions.  But it is almost by accident and the majority of what is done and taught is for the purpose of control and maintaining the security and social status of those who manage to spend their lives there.  If I had it to do over, I would very likely secure myself in that insulated existence and enjoy messing with the minds of students and faculty alike.

Depression without any real good reason is bad.  Depression with plenty of identifiable reason may be worse.

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Graceland; quick review

Graceland is a new show, I think.  Fairly new, anyway.

Picture the show, Friends, but exchange the characters for plainclothes cops representing various federal agencies. Put them in a SoCal beach house, and let one friend be a master manipulator/ lovable psychopath.  Most are from the shallow end of the kiddie pool of gene pools.  Others are just shallow, yet sincere.   Give the "Friends" writers partial lobotomies, and turn 'em loose.

And there you have it, Graceland.  Imagine the zaniness that ensues.

Ignoring the Speech Impediment in the Room

She did it again, while doing the other thing again.

So, while Michele was trying to fan flames of fear, resentment, racism, and victim fixation, she again displayed her inability to properly pronounce words beginning with STR.  Mrs. O loves to use the word "struggle", but I think advisors may have influenced her to use it less.  Or speech writers quietly altered their choice of words over the last couple of months.

Hearing Michele go on about the "schrtruggles" of others can be a distraction.  This time she was talking about the abuses you can expect when walking down the schrtreet.  No one asked, "Yo, what's a schrtreet?"  They may have been too busy contemplating the non future she was deshcribing.

I've noticed no parody or impersonation in this case.  That is unflattering.

I guess it annoys me.  There are people who've lived in that house whose speech bothers me so bad I cannot listen to them.  Bush was that way, so is Hillary, and both the Os.  I just cannot listen to them for long without discomfort.  Or dishcomfort.  I schrtruggle not to have ill feelings toward any of them.  I do think they are dishonest and not worth the money.

Just Wondering about the Privilege Issue

Recently I learned that the big rage on campus, and in other circles which enjoy a degree of insulation and, in a way, isolation, is to filter interpersonal relationships, one's moral compass and world view through the lens of "checking your privilege".  The privilege checkers I've read or heard seem oddly guilty, arrogant, and condescending, while telling themselves they are being empathetic and a whole lot nicer, hipper, and more aware than their awful forefathers.

I'm not sure what "check your privilege" means.  And when I'm in doubt I think to myself, "What would Steve Martin's character in The Jerk do?".  I'd make a bracelet expressing that sentiment in handy initials, but there are so many in this case that I might forget what they mean.  Besides, I'm not going to forget my go-to guy for this sort of thing.

Anyway, this in depth consideration leads me to ask, "Is privilege like special purpose?  If so, I've got one of those!!!  I'll check it now."  

For that reason, I'm reluctant to ask anyone to check his privilege.   It seems a bit personal and out of bounds.  Sign of the times I suppose; big brother, militarized police having wet dreams about martial law, people generally all up in everyone else's business.

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Swamp Cooled

Good thing I have that swamp cooler.  When humidity is low, like it is here, this inexpensive device, which only uses 85 watts, cools my place just fine.  It works out.

Other than that,  some friends are more the fair weather variety than others.  That is good because that lets me off the hook with them.  You just leave the ball in their court, and hope it stays there.  Less trouble that way.

Red Letter Day

For the first time in awhile I was able to shower without 45 minutes of after-shower under the skin fire ant attack.   Of course, to accomplish this I had to wait until things felt settled down.  Much of the day this phenomenon felt as if it were trying to rage forth.

Keeping calm, covered and infused with anti-histamines is the program for managing it.  Of course the other rituals also help.

It reminds me of the old Crisco party stories I heard way back when.  But this is not much fun.  Coat yourself n very light--not too fragrant--olive oil, and for good measure add a coat of coconut oil.  Then go in an use tea tree oil shampoo instead of soap.

End it all with water very hot, all over.  Run until it feels like you're as used to the hot water as you'll get.  The the mad dash to dry off quickly, but with minimum rubbing, as that can make matters worse.  Multiple towels is one way to go.

Then quickly throw on cotton tee shirt and long sleeve shirt, etc.  All the while willing calm equilibrium upon your body.  Today there are a few little irritations but not much.  The minor twinges which hint that an attack would love to come through feel like it does when you get your hair cut and  little of it gets down your shirt.

If that is all there is, then fantastic.  So, today is good.

 I tried to see if substituting cleaning up with baby wipes would be a quick alternative sometimes.  If you have this, do not waste your money.   It will send you over the edge.

So, I have to figure a way to go further with the tests to see if all this is a harbinger of doom, and if so, to what degree.  Or maybe just an anomaly of temporary duration.  In most of these cases they never figure it out.  I'm probably one that will be figured out. Or else it will just go away.
It is surreal.

If You Can't Take The Heat, Exit the Kitchen

These last few days have me thinking.   This entire area is highly flammable.   Yet it seems as if the preventative measures are still more reactive than proactive.   I know they are highly limited in what can be cut back where I live.  It seems to be a huge community which endangers itself in order to satisfy random environmental whims, and boondoggle crony capital ventures.

If nothing is going to change I am wondering if I can stay.  The trouble is, of the states that have no income tax, I'm not sure if I can cope with the weather--either hot cold/and/or highly humid.

Having my doubts about this burning itching attack thing.  There are expensive tests that can rule out some possible causes--none of them particularly good news.  So, on the good side, if such tests come back negative, I don't have to travel that crazy road.  But then they rarely find the cause, so chances are it becomes one of those, "learn to live with it" deals, and coping strategies continue.  I've learned some tricks, but this limits me quite a bit.  I'll bet there's a way to fix this.  Of course there is; just have to figure it out.   People often never figure thing out.  Doesn't mean there is no actual answer.  Ignorance is not proof or disproof.

This is an hour north of me, but not that far inland.  They think 8 of the 9 fires, may be arson.  The total is probably around 12 or 13 fires.  Some were put out very quickly.   The response has been rather impressive with many fire departments traveling from afar, and cooperation has been atypical for government agencies here in SoCal.  It is sick, 100F degree temps.  55mph wind.   2%!!!! humidity.  Who does that?  I grew up where 30% relative humidity was radically low.

That is how it goes.  The main hope is that I find a way on my own to change this game.  Otherwise it is forever just treating symptoms, avoiding water, too much exercise and all other triggers.

I'll bet it works out.  The specialist only confirmed what I thought, and thinks it ties into things I've experienced on and off for nearly thirty years.  It is just that the dam must have burst in the last few months.

Some have claimed that rebooting their diet got rid of similar symptoms after awhile.  An extended program of vegetable and fruit juices.  What have I got to lose?

Oh, if I find a need, and a way, to move, I figure I'll need a place with minimal redtape in obtaining permission to exist.  We've become a nation in which citizens exist by permissions.  People do not get it.   Many do not realize the Bill of Rights is not a list of permissions granted to the people.  Because they do not understand what is a right.

I have to be careful.  Feeling like this and being homeless would most likely be fatal.  So, we will play the game, against my better judgement and moral code.  I am selling out to some degree.  As little as possible, but I cannot fight how things are, wrong as it is.   Just look at the kind of freaks California elects to office.  It is probably worse on the state level than federal, if that is possible.

If I can afford to live legally, I may stay awhile.  But unless I make more money, it is inevitable that I'll have to hit the road sooner or later.

This fire thing is absolutely nuts. Camp Pendleton catches fire regularly, it seems; two, three times per year.  It smacks of same thing over and over, and no changes made.   I'll do the things I need to do to be  prepared to move if I choose to.  Maybe I'll make enough money to deal with CA.  For now, I no english, or any other language.  No comprendo.  No read. No speak it.

This was taken from inside a Marine chopper that is about to drop water on the fire in San Marcos, below