Listography 7 - List the strangest places you've had sex

Uh, mum?

Hi.

I'm not going to do this list. For your safety and mine.

Not that I am a member of the mile high club or anything, it's just that you might read this and that would be gross.

Quick update:

1. I am working 40 hours a week for an over 80 year old accountant. Yeah, it's as fun as it sounds.

2. Fatigue and heat sensitivity are still largely at bay.

3. I know what I have to do but I really lack the discipline and/or interest to do it.

4. Football day has inspired me to dance to ABBA, Lady Gaga, Diana Ross and Madonna. I also got the much needed manicure and pedicure out of the way.

5. I've figured out that wine isn't really for me, so I'm going to become a connoisseur of cocktails.

6. I've decided that whatever it is I end up doing with my life, it should come with a large gay following.

7. I cut my left index finger in a tragic bagel incident a few days ago and man is it gross. I just changed the dressing today and realized I probably should have went for a stitch or some glue. Meh.

8. I don't think there is a number 8. I can't think of anything else.

9. Any questions?

Listography 6 - List your biggest fears

I briefly considered numbering these, but rejected the idea. I know I have fears, I am unsure that I want to know how many.

I will go blind again.
I will lose the ability to walk.
I will lose my mind.
I will amount to nothing.
I will hate every job I have for the rest of my working life.
My working life won't be as long as it could've been.
I will always be fat.
I will never walk in heels again.
Some how, some way, my love of cosmetics is the reason why I got MS.
Getting blown up by a bomb.
Freezing to death.
Living past age 90.
I have ruined Joe's life.
Ugly shoes will be all I can safely wear.
Conservative Christians of the Batshit Crazy variety.
I'll never figure out how to translate misanthropy and organization into a money making venture.
Stephen Harper and his Conservatives with a majority government.
NASCAR
Wal Mart
I will be arrested and charged with a crime I did not commit.

CCSVI and MS

I'm afraid that a whole lot of people are going to be disappointed. There is absolutely no evidence, even Dr. Zamboni's research, that this procedure works for everyone.

Dr. Zamboni says that it works for people who's narrowing of the veins doesn't come back but what wasn't on the show was that 80% of the people who have had this surgery in California have the narrowing come back. Their symptoms may be less severe, but they're not "cured".

There's also a side effect of neck and shoulder problems for some people that should also be investigated before we start handing out this surgery for everyone and their brother with MS.

There's also no evidence that the procedure does anything to help with damage to the brain or undoing scar tissue. This answer also doesn't solve the mystery of MS's geographic and gender biases, the genetic factors, the connection to Guillain–Barré or Epstein-Barr, or even gluten, egg or dairy allergies or sensitivities. This very simple answer doesn't even begin to unravel the web of possibilities with MS.

Please, for the love of Pete, don't pin your hopes on this being "THE ANSWER". It is probably more like "one of a few answers".

End MS

CTV News program W5 investigates intriguing new theory about MS

For now, MS Societies in Canada and the U.S. have reacted cautiously to the research,, saying there is "insufficient evidence to suggest this phenomenon is the cause of MS" and discouraging patients from getting tested or seeking treatment.

But the researchers testing Zamboni's theory believe they're on to something that could change the future for MS patients around the world.

The report will be up on the CTV - W5 website after the show airs Saturday, November 21, 2009.

Listography 5 - List your past jobs

At some point in your working life you just have to admit to yourself that your personality is not well suited to certain forms of human interaction and then try desperately to earn a living that doesn't make you want to kill yourself.

I have yet to find that way. So here is my list of crazy bosses jobs I have had since moving to BC.

1. Actually, my first boss was pretty cool. HER boss was a little nuts. But it was retail sales in the mall closest to the richest people. Meeting sales quotas was easy. Then the boss sued the parent company, the parent company shut the store down, and we were all out of jobs. I was two weeks short of qualifying for any kind of severance.

2. Receptionist for a biotech firm. My boss was anal retentive to the point where a fax sent to order lunch had to be typed and approved by her. Because hand written could send the wrong message. I quit after three months to take...

3. Secretary to a union. This job started out great. The hours were good, the pay was good, the benefits excellent. Then the boss started getting angry at me for things that had happened 6 months earlier that I we had already resolved. The final straw - I caught him doing something illegal in the lunch room the day before I told his wife he was in Edmonton when he had told her he was at his place in the US. I thought he was having an affair. I ended up getting very sick with an intestinal parasite and instead of returning to work 6 weeks later I was laid off.

Odd twist to this little story. The guy is now doing time. Not an affair after all.

4. I did some temping at UBC and various and sundry mining companies sitting in front of phones that didn't ring.

5. Legal services. My boss had unrealistic expectations of how thorough my training was by a woman who hated me literally on sight. My department went bye-bye a year and a bit later, and I got my next job while I was still getting severance from this one.

6. CARTOONS. Actually, no one involved in this workplace was crazy. I so wish this had been more of a job. Getting to help with the creation of a Saturday morning cartoon and the related merchandising was very cool. Too bad that what there was to do wasn't enough to justify a full time job. Fun workplace though. Three month contract ended up turning into nothing.

7. NFP business association. I thought that the board was cool, but it turns out they're screwing me over for a reference because I got sick with MS 6 months into my employment there. My boss and I didn't really get along, and apparently the boss wins over the hired help in those circles.

8. Pirate chasing! A great opportunity to find out if I had the energy and stamina to take on the working world again, and I can and I am back out in that world. Donna and crew are a bit geekier than I'm used to, but a righteous bunch of people who seemed happy with my work. Sad that there's no way to sign on as a full time employee, because I would do it in a second.

9. Assistant to an accountant. - Dial-up internet, foot powered dictaphone transcription, technology explanations that go no where and being treated like I'm a fucking tool because the 8 year old software busted today, the company no longer supports that version, and doesn't offer support advice for any product in that line before 2004. When I tell the accountant who's the admin on that program, she takes all the information I gathered, talks to me like I'm lying, calls the company tech support again and gets told the *exact* *same* *thing* and then continues to tell me how to file, how to make labels, and how to make coffee like I'm new.

Here I am again with a job I hate because its the only opportunity that's presented itself. I got the head up on a federal government temp job, which I have just spent a half hour making my resume boring enough to show that I meet the Merit Criteria.

Hopefully my Employment Equity (EE) status pushes me over the top.

Not that working for The Man seems like fulfillment of a lifelong dream, but at least I'll be adequately compensated for my time. Because, when its all said and done, a little financial security can go a long way at allowing me to keep my wits about me.

Reviewing this list is really depressing. Eight jobs in just over 6 years, though I'm not sure if 3 of them count. (Retail, biotech and cartoons) So 5 jobs in 6 years. That's depressing. It really drives home how stupid my life is.

I'm going to eat one of my 77 pieces of Halloween candy.

Stuck

For about 10 years now I've been stuck on a treadmill life.

As I was making my way on public transit today I realized how many times I've been *here*. Not on the 99B, though I've been on it a lot, but here in this same situation.

I'm stuck in a job that I hate for not enough money because I don't have the credentials to do something more interesting.

(notice I said credentials, not skills)

This is what a 155 IQ and problems with authority will get you, folks.

Perhaps there's a living to be made as a cautionary tale?

I continue to work my ass off for this man. I will continue looking for a better job.
I am working full time to no ill effect manly because I can now and there's no guarantee how long I will be able to do this. So I will do everything to my fullest ability today because I know that the MS monster lurks in the shadows and will eventually take everything from me.

Really, if the world ends in 2012, I'm totally okay with that.

Listography 4 - List your favourite films

This list is by no means exhaustive, and other than the first one, are listed in no particular order. The list is mostly the films I will watch again and again.

1. Casablanca - Hands down my favourite movie. I have watched in dozens of times and will drop anything I am doing to watch it if I come across it on TV. I aspire to write such a timeless screenplay, knowing full well I never will. Romance, international conflict, unrequited love, smoking, espionage, bizarre love triangle, snarky best friends, drinking and Nazis = perfect.

(here's where it gets random... just as they pop into my head.)

Superbad - I laughed until I cried and fell in love with Seth Rogan in the meantime.

Chasing Amy - Because I've been my own version of Alyssa. Because I've chased an Amy. I've been the chased Amy.

Bitch, what you don't know about me I can just about squeeze in the Grand fucking Canyon.

Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist - I saw this movie a while after one of my life's closest friends died of Cystic Fibrosis. Bob Flanagan was the oldest living survivor of CF when he died at the age of 44. He and his friends and family believed that it was his daily beatings from his dominatrix wife that kept him alive as long as he was. He also does something very *graphic* with a hammer, nail and pressure treated lumber. (shudder) Long story long, the last little bit of the film shows his death in fairly disturbing terms.

I hadn't been there for my friend as she was dying, but I felt like watching that film somehow closed that book for me, and I could stop feeling guilty about not being there when she died. I remember walking the couple of blocks from the theatre to the car with my date in absolute silence because anything I had to say about the film wouldn't say enough.

Being John Malkovich Because John Malkovich is creepy and being him would be terrifying.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure - Teenage escapist fare. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Michael Clayton - because I do love me some good legal drama.

Reservoir Dogs - a film about a jewelery store robbery that never takes place in a jewelery store is a brilliant piece of film making.

I'm the One That I Want - Margaret Cho saved my life two days before my 30th birthday with this quote.

I’m not going to die because I failed as someone else. I’m going to succeed as myself.

It's getting close to shut down time here, so I think I'm going to end it with an explanation free list

Baise Moi
Brave Little Toaster
Hotel Rwanda
Bad Lieutenant
Sin City
Breakfast at Tiffany's
American History X
The Godfather II
The Shawshank Redemption
Todo sobre mi madre (All About my Mother)
Roman Holiday
William Shakespear's Romeo and Juliet
Taxi Driver
Double Indemnity
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
The Usual Suspects
Happy Gillmore
Lock, Stock and Two Smokin Barrels
Gran Torino
Fubar
The Sweet Hereafter
Dazed and Confused
The Sixth Sense
Paris is Burning
To Kill a Mockingbird
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Seven
The Sound of Music
12 Angry Men
Silence of the Lambs
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
LA Confidential
The Jungle Book

In honour of the 114,433 Canadians who have died in service of our nation

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning.

We will remember them.

And furthermore,

I didn't get the job because I physically couldn't walk to her office and wouldn't have been able to get there if there was anything like snow at all.

Joe is going to quit school after this semester because even if I get a job he can't rely on me to stay employed. After we get caught up he'll figure out how to go back part time.

I have failed. Everything I promised Joe when he moved here is now lost. If it wasn't just another fucking expense I would kill myself. I'm pretty much useless now if I can't even pull my own weight around here.

My dad is right. I totally deserve this because this is the life that I chose and I failed to plan for all possible outcomes.

I feel like I've been repeatedly punched in the face. I can't stop crying. I feel like I'm standing on the edge of losing absolutely everything.

Kill me now.

I have just been rejected by the Province of BC for disability benefits because Joe is a full-time student. The requirement is that we have to apply for regular welfare benefits as a family and then see if I can get the disability supplement on top of that. Between the two of us we would be allowed to make $500 a month. I can feel free to re-apply when he quits school to look for gainful employment.

The application for Canada Pension Plan disability benefits will take 3 to 6 months and I will probably have to appeal that, making it a year or more before I either get a cheque or am told I don't qualify. (I've been told that people with MS not in wheelchairs are rejected close to 75% of the time, and only win appeals in 30% of those cases.)

MS has destroyed my life, and now it's quickly destroying Joe's. If I don't find a job very, very quickly, everything we have will be gone- our apartment, our electricity, phones and internet. I have 8 days to come up with a plan before everything starts to be taken away from us.

Joe doesn't deserve this. He deserves a good wife who can fulfill the promises she made him when he moved to this godforsaken country.

I need a job. That's the only option at this point.

A Note to You:

H1N1 - If you know me and are thinking about coming to visit when you don't feel well, please refrain. I have been immuno-suppressed for the past week and only now is my immune system on the rebound. Due to this I can't receive my vaccine for another week to 10 days and I can't receive a seasonal flu shot until mid-December. I also don't shake hands any more, and limit my physical contact with people who have daily contact with children or at-risk communities. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just trying to prevent getting sick.

Thanks.