Lasik Vision Correction: Not so Elective After All

My upcoming Lasik eye surgery is a matter of survival. As an emergency kit stowed in a hallway closet is peace of mind, my laser vision will be one step to ultimate survival. If the Armageddon happens, I will be able to see. And being able to see, will make me a superior being to those that will have to rely on contacts and glasses in a do-over earth. Contacts will dry out, irritate eyes and have no place to store overnight. Saline solution will become a crutch currency and the wreckages of Walgreen's will be never alone for the constant shuffling of debris from the ocularly dependent.
Those with glasses can match my stride if their frames were not blown off their face in the blast. But soon the glasses will break or be misplaced or be blown off the face.
With my eyesight, others will join my coven of survivors. As their leader, I will reach out and befriend other laser vision survivors with tales of my own elective corrective vision surgery. And we will be friends. Eagle eye friends. I will befriend the remaining 2 eagles on barren earth and my eyes will speak to them. My laser vision eyes will communicate to the soul of the eagle. And then I will know why it is bald.

Fountain of Youth or Hey! Pizza Face!

A sucker is born every minute and happy birthday to me. Now a month into my 25th year and as people older than myself like to point out, "you're a quarter of a century now," I am well aware that I am supposed to or at least pretend to be an adult. But what do adults do, I wonder? Watch the news? Check, I can't help that since a certain date of alarm we've all be very aware of breaking news with the 24hr news networks. What else am I suppose to do? Get old, I'm down with that, or at least I thought I was.
Peering into my toothpaste-splattered mirror, my vanity erupted into worry. Do I have to get a face-lift? How will I pay for that? Wait a minute; I don't even want to go! As quoted myself after the infamous 2001 knee reconstruction, "surgery sucks." Quicker than Quakers, my worry lines eased into a self-assured smug, I realized I had already turned the clock so far back it was a sundial. Across my Irish/German/English/Danish and foremost Scottish cheekbones stood the fountain of youth. I am the proud owner, shall I say curator or cultivator of a magnificent crop of sturdy and immovable blackheads, occasionally visited by their much beefier cousins; pimples, zits, blemishes and as the British say spots. My skin looks more the pop-star-lusting pre-teen than any card-carrying twenty-something. On the edge of embracing my chronic torrential acne, I balked, did the years and dollars I spent attempting to grind, medicate, squeeze and, my favorite,
visualize them away mean nothing? What about the hours of recreational dermatological excavations in the shower? I stood in light boxes for you, endured freezing treatments and was filled full of years of problematic pills to eradicate my acne. And yes, I did the Accutane and no, it didn't work. But I did enjoy the novel length waivers and cautions I had to sign in order to take the drug. My developing years were plagued by my constant epidermal eruptions, causing clichéd self esteemed. Now I take no "miracle pills" and may have a little too much self-esteem (if that's possible). Surprised at myself with the apparent lack of concern for my destined to be defective complexion, I realized I was an adult; scratch that, a quarter centenarian. I guess I had perspective, and I always thought that meant a vanishing point. And it did because what's a zit on my forehead? Nothing, if anything just another reason to be asked for my ID and
questioned about its authenticity.
I can say now that time was the answer; the battlefield of my face has been quiet. Occasionally bumps rise again like a long forgotten rebellion, threatening forests of hair follicles. Relatively soon, they retreat, the relinquishing their strategic pore holdings and leaving their protest signs in the sebum. What do I have to do to maintain this pallor peace? Toxic astringents? Benzoly peroxide bombings? Slaughters with salicylic acid?

Go Blog Go!

Check it out! Unearthed from forgotten depths of the internets, Go Blog Go, my first blog has been located and re-mastered with dolby digital! Check out me from 2006ish!

Word

Concourse B, Gate B10

I am 28 years old and I packed a suitcase full of dirty laundry for Thanksgiving and that is not a smart metaphor. I have four chapsticks in my plastic 1-quart bag of 3 oz containers with one lip-gloss, a full sized deodorant and mouth sore pain reliever gel. Looks like I am anticipating a post-turkey tryptophan-laced mass-makeout session with questionable oral health participants.

I packed a toothbrush. It didn't fit in the 1-quart bag I picked up in the security checkpoint line. I know it isn't liquid and didn't need to be screen separately but its friends were in there, you know, the mouth sore gel and the horde of lip applicants. I put the toothbrush on the bottom of my purse. Figured that would be cleaner than placing it directly on the conveyer belt through the x-ray machine. What am I supposed to do with all my toiletry accoutrements now that they have to be segregated by viscosity? My glasses, contact case and toothbrush have nowhere to live now that the pastes and ointments have to suffocate in a Ziploc. So they run free. Free as the movie stubs from The Dark Knight that haunt the corners of my purse. I suppose they could go in a case. A case for the contact case. A case for the eyeglasses. A case for the toothbrush. Too many cases. Toothbrushes are always gross anyway. If it looks dirty later, I guess I'll throw
it away.

The girl in front of me in the security line has a brand new American Girl Doll, looks like Christmas came early. I know it's new because the doll hair is still braided in the oft-imitated never-replicated sleekness of a factory fresh $90 credit charge. She got the Swedish one. Kjersten or something, there is a "J" in the name, a silent "J."

Four moving sidewalks, two escalators and a tram ride to my concourse. Concourse B is hidden out back, that's where they keep the tiny planes. Secret tiny planes. I bet we will be stealth in our arrival to ND. Invisible even. In our tiny plane. Tiny secret plane.

Lasik Eye Surgery: My Gateway to a Boob Job?

I am getting a complimentary eye exam to determine if I am I good candidate for Lasik eye surgery. I think anyone willing to shell out the dollars is a good candidate, which is why part of the exam can include a financing consultation.
The clinic offered to perform the surgery right after my appointment tomorrow. I am not quite that ready yet. I just want to see if it is possible, because if it isn't, case closed. So, I am going in. When I called to make my appointment, the woman on the phone set me up and asked a bunch of questions, like "how long have you been considering Lasik." And I answered, "Since Thursday." She laughed until she realized I was serious.

I never seriously considered Lasik until Thursday. I just decided to check it out. If I had the surgery, I won't have so many contact issues, won't blink on camera so much or have to buy more cheap glasses from Hong Kong (which I might miss if Lasik makes my vision perfect).

But my real concern is about is Lasik going to be my gateway to a boob job? I can pretend all I want that I am interested in Lasik is because my eyes get infected sometimes with my contacts or something like that, but really I dig the convenience and the simplification. So why not a boob job? That would add to my convenience, but not necessarily to any simplification. And surgery sucks, in any form.

I just want to keep the globes out of my shirt.

Olympics: Why am I not wearing Gold Medals?

What can I take up at the ripe age of 27?

I think rowing or picking up seashells. I like beaches, weather is never too hot for me, I like oceans, I have no problem leaning down and becoming upright again, sand between my toes is cool and I can totally walk with my head down for long periods of time if needed.

Looks like I probably have to become an Olympic beachcomber.

I've already mastered walking in Earth shoes with Kalso Negative Heel Technology, which mimics walking in stand and thusly encourages the body into a more natural and healthy posture. I figure I can wear my Earth shoes to cross train in the winter. I will wear the Earth shoes in the snow and increase the effect. Then walking in sand will be like floating.

I can practice picking up seashells by picking up lost change on the street or sidewalk. This extra dough will finance my training program and help fund my beach combing uniform, unless the country pays for that. I'm not sure on all the logistics of being on an Olympic team just yet.

Yes, I am aware that Beachcombing is a difficult sport to break into, especially with all those island nations out there. I will use that to my advantage, I spend most of my year buried in snow with is just as difficult to walk in and has that annoying squeaking crunching sound, so when I show up all pasty white on the Olympic beach the other Olympians will under-estimate me, but I will find all the seashells! Take that other nations! The USA Beachcombing team of 2012 is going take home the gold!

2008: The Year I plus an Amazing Acting Tip

Fainted. For real. I fainted. 

I never figured myself as the type with 'the vapors' but proved myself wrong. I was in rehearsal, ready for my 'kill the baby' line and felt so very tired. I remember thinking 'I will just bend my knees a little' then a black curtain showed up and I was having a great dream about the show until I was woken up and pissed off that I was in a gymnasium not my bed. I thought, 'why are all these people in my bedroom?', then I thought, 'Oh, it's Saturday at 7:30, I am in rehearsal, how am I on the floor, my teeth hurt.' I guess everyone thought I was 'acting' when I face planted in to the floor but when I missed my line they realized I wasn't that good of an actor. Paramedics were called, fainting the diagnosis. Now I am hyper aware of myself. Any feeling of tiredness I am concerned my knees might go out again, which wouldn't be too bad since the dream was really nice. 

I understand why people faint for fake now or feel faint for fake. (Warning Amazing Acting Tip) What a great way to get attention, out of whatever you were doing and an excuse for almost anything! And for actors, fake feeling faint or fake fainting provides an excellent opportunity to test one's skill at acting physical distress without needing actual symptoms. During your exercise in fake fainting you can gauge your success at acting by how much attention you are receiving from those around you. The more concern=The better the acting!

Happy Acting!

Current Nostalgia: Reading Out Loud

Paragraph Reader!

Learning by reading paragraphs. I guess it works. Not for learning but for counting. IN elementary school to achieve the double whammy of practicing reading aloud and absorbing whatever new information we were learning at the time. The teachers would have us all open our books to the same pages and go around the room each reading a paragraph at a time. I don't know about anyone else but I would always count ahead to what paragraph I would be reading to see how long it was and if there were any words I didn't know in it. If there were words I didn't know the I would scan the previous paragraphs to see if the word appeared earlier and then wait for whoever was reading that paragraph to pronounce or mispronounce the word to save face when I had to read it. If the word appeared for the first time in my paragraph I would then fret and explore the ways to say it, sounding it out, guessing what it rhymed with or practicing my "I don't care if I say it wrong, you try to get it right inflection". The pre-counting of paragraphs didn't always work. Sometimes paragraphs are only one or two sentences long and then I didn't know if the reader would read the super short paragraph only or read the next one as well. Sometimes the teacher wanted the student to read more than the short paragraph. This always messed up the count. I then would have to prepare myself for reading any number of paragraphs, not knowing how the super short paragraphs would be treated. Another wrench in this plan is not knowing the direction the student to student reading will go, up and down rows, across tables, in a circle, I never knew so I had to determine the pattern of reading first, or guess it. I don't remember actually learning anything from the out loud reading other than how to strategize my potential paragraph.

Once I got to high school, I thought that panic was over.

And yet, this is how I am trained in my pretend job. If I am not being read to from a text heavy PowerPoint slide, I am reading aloud paragraph by paragraph in a group of adults. Doing the same things of course, counting ahead to see what paragraph will be for me to be able to prepare myself and impress everyone with my reading out loud skills.

Good thing I can pronounce more words now.

Honestly Vermont Ugly It Up

Vermont. Choked with pretty. Everywhere I look is a
perfect postcard. I want to lick a stamp the size of
Rhode Island and stick it on Vermont. It is just
Vermont too, sure new Hampshire is nice, but when you
cross the state line it to New Hampshire is there a
speckled doe standing on the edge of the forest at
4:00 in the afternoon? I don't think so. I am sure
that deer is paid to be there because what deer in
their right mind stands next to a highway during the
day, not looking to dart in front of a car? But still,
it was there. And the hippies! Crocheted stocking hats
on adults and children, flowing skirts, sandals,
vegetarian options and wheelchairs with giant
hand-woven baskets attached. They were even teaching
the children dowsing on the State Capital lawn.
Dowsing! Public education and the government endorsing
such a hippie activity!
But the pretty. I can't even imagine the pretty in the
fall with the colors and the leaves. I would explode
and my glistening inners hanging from the majestic
gold, amber and bronze leaves would only make the
pretty even more inspiring and beautiful. My scarlet
blood only enhancing the warm tones of the burr oak
leaves.

But spring in the Vermont is stunning enough, light
green budding trees laced through gray-brown bare
branches with deep green evergreens punctuating the
display. Talk about composition! It is like a freaking
design school project. Foreground, background, rule of
thirds, depth, landscape, focal points, in Vermont any
moron with a camera is Ansel Adams.

Vermont is where all movies should be filmed and where
foreign visitors can only go. The pretty will improve
the world's view of America, the hippies will dispel
the notion of fat stupid Americans and the pretty will
make everyone want to be nice to us, like how people
are nice to pretty girls, even if they are stupid.

Vermont. Who knew they had the entire pretty?

Paper Bag Monster!

So unassuming brown paper bag, beneath your crinkly,
dry, flammable form stews a commanding evil force.
Beware the wrath of the monster of paper bag! Or at
least carry your lunch inside!

Inbox Delight: Unsolicited Pork Shoulder

Bigger Copulation Organ in Two Weeks.

That is what spammer Georgette Kerns is offering me. I will have to turn down her offer but I am impressed with the use of a book of synonyms, often including related and contrasting words and antonyms to entice consumers. I guess she's trying to reach a higher, less crude class of under-representative copulation organs. 

Two weeks, huh? Sounds like a deal.

Tryin' to be Learned

After five years of saying I was going to apply to
graduate school, I finally did. I even made it to the
interview round at the more prestigious of the three
schools I applied to. And was swiftly sent a rejection
letter. I think I might have been discredited when I
referred to myself as 'artsy fartsy' in the interview
or when I reference a 'triforce' of power in my
discussion of a certain play.

I got a rejection letter from my 'safety school' too.
I guess I am just too awesome.

Rick Reilly, it is all your fault.

Rick Reilly, you are the reason I have not been blogging. You are the reason my home is a mess and the cause of my debilitating case of procrastination. And you know what? I don't even subscribe to Sports Illustrated. It's your book. No, I can't sneeze fifteen minutes away each week on your column, I have the whole book, 100 columns, 100 reasons to not do stuff. And such easy chunks. How many times have I said to myself this week, "Oh, I'll just read one." One turns into two which turns in to reading fifteen columns and I am laughing, crying and contemplating my way to presidency of  ProcrastiNation. 

I haven't picked up my tennis balls in months but it's not serendipity that I am reading your book. I used to read your column, like a real sports fan once a week from a subscription in my high school years. Then you had become my favorite columnist and I had easily packed you away as I ventured on my artistic career. But now you are back in my life, all 318 pages of you. 

I am supposed to be the opposite of an athlete. I am an artist, for Pete's sake, even better an actor. I am not supposed to be interested in the lives of professional golfers, high school football teams or even figure skating. 

Rick, let me tell you. Tomorrow is the opening night of my directing and playwriting debut and this past week I have laundry list of details to complete including finding appropriate "I am a director" clothes that say well-dressed and artsy at the same time. But this has be usurped by lounging on the couch soaking up columns from six years ago about you coaching girls basketball. Six years ago! 

And let me tell you, if you think coaching is hard. Direct a play. There I am the coach, but I can only coach them in practice and come the big game is it all up to the players. I don't get to call 'time' when things suck to say, "We're dying out there, quick I wrote this new dialogue, get in there and emote!" No substitutions and if any pulls a hammy, they better not let the audience figure it out. Man, I broke my ACL in a show once and did I get to be on the DL?  And there is no score board. I can't strategize how many points we need to get the lead back. The audience doesn't hold up score cards letting me know how the show is going. We are just supposed to know. 

Yeah, Rick Reilly, everything is all your fault. 

The Monster Electric

Another monster!! He is pretty spunky, pushing the envelope on the transformer box and all. I hope he doesn't lick the electricity with a tongue like that. 

Happy Fiberuary!

Fiberuary: Its history and lore

One late January day in 2006, a spirited female returned to a land of cold, grey ice after a brief visit to the lush green friendliness of the Caribbean islands. Feeling, blocked by all the frozen peoples, a calm settled upon her as she realized what the people needed was a cause for celebration, a gentle push in the direction of freedom, a cleansing, a reason to get up and make a movement, thus Fiberuary, the celebration of large intakes of fiber was born!

Celebrate!!

In honor my my newly minted month-long holiday, I will be consuming at least if not more of the daily recommended allowance of fiber everyday! Yesterday, on the first official day of Fiberuary I hit 105% of my fiber intake.

This was yesterday's intake

Two FiberOne bars- 9 gm each 

Two Servings of Quaker Oat Simple Harvest Hot cereal 4 gm each

A bunch of raw red peppers

Assorted other less than awesome food items contributing to a minimal intake of fiber.

Don't worry I will not keep posting my fiber numbers everyday (unless of course that is what the blogosphere wants!)

Today I am already at 35% of my daily recommended allowance and it is not even noon! And there are some black beans in my future.

Happy Fiberuary everyone!

Toe Mollusk: Potential Gross-out Alert

My toenail has cracked at the bottom. It is like when you tear or crack a chunk off off your finger nail. It is ugly, ragged but doesn't hurt a ton. Same with the toenail crack. It is unusual because toenails, or at least my toenails, seem to be very thick so for it to crack would take a lot of force. And the crack is not on the outer edge which comes in contact with the largest variety of circumstances. 

I know how this came to be. Remember November? Who doesn't? Santa Claus but he was busy. Anyway, I wore shoes that were constricting for four weeks and developed bruises underneath my large toenails on both feet on the outside edges of the nails. The bruises were cool in the way that watching surgery is cool. They didn't hurt so I figured it wasn't a problem. Well, before I left on my cruise I painted my toenails to so unsuspecting strangers would not be intrigued by my bruised nails and wonder what kind of pedicures I got. 

All was well and good with my disguised feet until I went snorkeling (which is a whole blog on its own) I think the flippers ran across my feet at the luckiest angle and with the swimming and the fluttering I cracked the bottom of my toenails. At least the cracks match about  a quarter of an inch in from both sides are little cracks. I had no problem with the cracks until in my own arcaic) toenail clipping (I just ripped them off my hand), I pulled the whole side of the toenail up. I didn't pull it all off completely but it is extremely tempting. I have a toenail doorway right now. I like to look under it. When I was on the cruise sand would get under the toenail. I hope that in time my toenail would turn just one lucky grain of sand into a pearl. Pedi-pearls.

Shopping List

Last week in preparation for my cruise in the Caribbean I purchased

Four boxes of generic Dramamine

Three types of sunblock with SPFs from 45 to 55

One tube of sunless tanner

Obviously, I want to avoid the sun but look like I don't. I am a bit insecure.

In The Bag

Today, I flew too close the the sun and my wings melted. I had four bags in my car to carry inside. Part laziness and part over confidence I thought I could take them all in at once. I slung the book bag over my shoulder (I need to point this out now so you don't later, no, it was not a backpack or I would have put it on my back), tourniqueted my wrist with the plastic bag and grabbed the handles on one of two paper bags. Success so far. Then I went for the final bag. I miss aimed and only grabbed one of the handles and with my amazing strength ripped it off. This ruined my easy cargo transportation. I still thought I could do it. I braced myself, grabbed the bag by the side and tried to pull it into the crook of my arm. The weight of the bag caused it to fall backwards which made me let go and try to "re-catch" the bag as it fell. The bag missed my hand slammed into the ground and started bleeding Fat Free, non-BGH-treated milk all over the subzero parking lot. I watched in fascinated horror as the milk rivered away my blueberries, I had so fondly admired for their french subtitling of bluets. My bluets! I quickly removed the salvagables from the milk soaked bag; a wet mango, lacerated avocado and a drippy sack of cilantro. By the time I had set down all my other bags and attended to the wet bag, the spilled milk had  started to freeze on my hands and the parking lot.  Best story ever. 

52 Monsters

Looks like I have a calling. Inconvenient Monsters: Scrappily and crappily made. This one is rather ominous since the soldiers are melting in fear. Maybe it is the hideous color combinations. He is  a blob with no arms or legs and a drawn on mouth, so what is to fear boys? Maybe he is so fat he had is mouth wired shut and they are afraid that he is so hungry that he will eat them anyway by straining them through the wires and sucking them between the small crevices of the teeth were only floss fits. 

Lizard on a Stick

Merv, the reverse snowbird, has embraced his new residency with great relish showcasing his own Minnesota pride by being Merv on a Stick. Next thing he'll take up ice hockey and elongate his o's. 

Saw the movie had to read the books

Read Phillip Pullman's  His Dark Materials Trilogy:

Beautiful.

Cried.

Made me want a cat.

So I guess that makes two pussies. 

The Inconvenient Monsters go to the Park

Today, the inconvenient monsters and I went to the park. They had a great time trying to play on all of the park toys. Alas, disappointment set in when they discovered that many playthings required arms.

An Accidental Lizard

I have unexpectedly become the primary caregiver for an anole. It's a lizard. I call them sidewalk lizards because when I was in Florida they were all over the sidewalks. Hence, sidewalk lizards. Merv Griffin is pretty small. He hitched a ride out of dodge on a load of plants. I, being either soft-hearted, defiant or non-murderous, saved him from the destiny of the underside of an intentional shoe. It was either death or live with me. Make your own joke here:

I spoke out against his execution and thusly, am now responsible for his life. 

When I was trying to prevent his death, my goal was not to become his custodian. I am sure this is a metaphor for something about why people don't speak out on things. When you do protest things you become responsible. In my case for a lizard but there could be worse things to be responsible for, like trans fats.