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ABC

Nick — Sun, 18 Oct 2020 09:22:51 +0000

When did America forget how to spell? I am amazed at the number of semi-professional websites out there with spelling errors in almost every sentence. Last night, after browsing a designer’s website and feeling pretty inspired and somewhat intimidated, I went to his “ideas” page. Three paragraphs chock full of spelling errors. Some that could be dismissed as typos, but others were just downright embarrassing! I felt compelled to contact him and beg him to fix the errors that, for me, detracted so strongly from any idea of professionalism I might have at first respected him for. His artistic work was pure genius!

My own children seem to think spelling is for nerds and old people (like myself apparently). In the age of internet communication, who needs correct spelling? That’s their philosophy, and sadly it echos through an entire generation.

Just take a little browse through some random blogs, or personal websites…you’ll be horrified, I’m sure.

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Busy

Nick — Sat, 10 Oct 2020 09:22:47 +0000

I’m still here. Just swept along in a current of activity and work. Photographed the reception for a family wedding over the weekend. Here are a few shots (taken with just my little Canon Powershot).

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Why?

Nick — Tue, 28 Jan 2020 09:27:51 +0000

Lately my blog has taken a decided and sudden turn toward feminist issues. Let me explain. Some recent exposure to men who objectify women without batting an eyelash and as long as it’s not anyone they know, and “no one is getting hurt”, has compelled me to look for the evidence that this justification is ludicrous. Not only have I found sufficient evidence to confirm my gut feelings, I’ve found enough evidence to make my gut sick.Second, raising two children in a culture that is becoming rapidly disconnected as fast as it is connecting, and becoming increasingly media driven and pornified, I am reaching a point of ORANGE ALERT.

In my research, I found Sparkle Matrix, who has opened my eyes to issues I wasn’t even thinking about. Take this rape campaign poster that clearly blames the victim. Horrified as I was, still, I thought Sparkle Matrix’s interpretation of the intention was overkill. After all, Britain was trying right? Maybe their attempts were slightly misguided, but change and progress is a slow and painful process. Lighten up already! At least there WERE posters being made.

Then, because it was on my mind, I brought this up to a few people, and I was a little dismayed that they could not immediately see the connection between the message and victim blaming.

Still, I thought, we’re making progress, right? No. Not enough.

We’re not making enough progress when Harriet McCormick, a bright young woman who lives in the very same country that produced those progressive anti-rape posters, made the mistake of getting drunk and blamed herself, suffered for almost a year, before finally taking her own life. This woman would have contributed great things to society. She was already on her way to doing so. Instead, she took her life because she couldn’t live with the guilt, the trauma, or the conflict between the two. I wonder what her rapist is doing today? I wonder if he is giving his life in service to others? I wonder if he is racked with guilt? Somehow, sadly, I doubt it.

The thing is, Sparkle Matrix and others are right on this issue, and I see that now. Maybe one out of three rapes happen when a woman is drunk, but three out of three happen when there is a rapist involved. Why focus on the 1 out of 3? Why focus solely on the woman’s responsibility in the possibility that she will be raped? Why not focus on teaching men that rape is just wrong. It’s wrong. It’s always wrong. And you know what else? Women do NOT fantasize about being raped. Not the way real rape happens, but I will talk about that in another post. The reality is, it’s more like this.

What’s more, I did a Google search after reading the story of this girl to find the post I had read about the rape campaign posters. I found this one instead. Maybe I’m just being overly sensitive after reading about a young woman throwing herself off a bridge and plummeting to her death, leaving behind family and friends to pick up the pieces. Maybe I’m just being a silly woman. Maybe I’m just being an angry feminist.

Or maybe this ad is using sex to sell anti-rape. How else would you get a guy to look at it, right? “Must put a woman in panties on poster”.

When people think it’s no big deal that anti-rape campaigns use such misguided messages as these, please read her story. Read it over and over until you are sick with the idea that the message in our culture is still to blame the victim, and to still use women’s bodies to sell everything from deoderant to “please don’t rape us, it hurts”.

People, it is 2008. When the hell are we going to evolve? And women…it is time for the next wave of rebellion. Honest to goddess, it really really is.

Stay tuned for “A Letter to Men”, “A Letter to Boys”, “A Letter to Women”, “A Letter to Girls”. (John B., I’m talking about it.)

And if you’re not angry enough yet, read on here about how a convicted rapist of children was just buried with full military honors. If you are angry, sad, or otherwise moved, please share this, bookmark it, and talk about it.

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If Only it was Just an Apple a Day

Nick — Sun, 24 May 2009 09:38:39 +0000

Other than the approximately seven days when the antibiotic worked, I was sick in a way that was hard to explain to anyone, and even harder for me to understand or make sense of. Most of my symptoms changed daily, even hourly. The only common threads were a slightly sore throat, sometimes a headache, a debilitating weakness, and those fevers that would come and go rapidly. The rest of my symptoms varied. Sometimes I felt pain in my muscles, especially on the right side of my body. During those times, the smallest activity could leave me sore for hours. Plucking my eyebrows would result in hours of shoulder muscle pain. Walking from a building to my car would leave my legs sore. Talking on the phone was even too taxing for my oddly weakened body.

I started getting sick again while I was still on the antibiotic, so I had to go back to the hospital clinic. The doctor I saw that day refused to consider that my relapse was the same thing. I had pain in my abdominal organs that day, so he decided I must have a urinary tract infection, even though I had just finished a two week course of antibiotics. So I peed in a cup, had my arm poked for blood samples, and listened to a doctor tell me absurd things like how my fevers and muscle weakness that made it difficult to move around MUST be a urinary tract infection.

The UTI test came back negative, as did the test for Lyme, but I was still sick and getting more sick. For the next week I would spend almost every waking moment that I had any energy researching what could be the cause of my strange illness. I called doctors, specialists, researched tick-borne related illnesses, auto-immune illnesses, ran my symptoms through symptom checker websites, until I was spent for the day. I learned some stuff I never knew. The test for Lyme is often negative, in fact it’s negative in over 60% of actual Lyme disease cases. I also learned that the AG of Connecticut opened an investigation into the governing body of infectious disease because they seemed to be ignoring peer reviewed research in establishing the diagnostic and treatment protocols for Lyme.

Then I got in to see another doctor who said she would be willing to run more tests. I had my arm poked some more, I described the strange array of symptoms, and the doctor prescribed me another round of the same exact antibiotic for the same period of time.

Now, I’m not a doctor, but I know enough to know that if an antibiotic doesn’t work the first time around on something, it sure as hell isn’t going to work the second time around. I tried to persuade her to give me a different antibiotic or a higher dose, or a longer period of time. She was, as most doctors are, good at making me feel like I couldn’t possibly have a clue what I was talking about, and she practically patted me on the head as she shooed me out the door.

All my bloodwork came back “normal”. No Lupus, no Rheumatoid Arthritis, no Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, no Lyme, no anything. I was three days into the antibiotic and STILL sick, and had developed a new symptom. The feeling that a tight band was wrapped around my lower ribs squeezing ever tighter and tighter. I would later figure out this symptom was a severe side effect of Doxycycline and landed myself in the ER again where I was told two different things about the cause (and the following day told still two more different things by a pharmacist and the doc I had seen in Boston). I had no choice but to go off the antibiotic. Within a few days my breathing was back to normal, and then I promptly caught a cold – germs I probably picked up during all my ER and doctor visits, but the weakness and fevers were gone.

So far I’ve still not had a return of the odd symptoms – oh, except for that heart arrythmia that showed up a few days ago…

With love,

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Update

Nick — Tue, 12 May 2009 09:38:29 +0000

The saga is long and, including last night, I have racked up 5 ER visits in a month. That has to be some kind of record. The good news is that I think I’m finally getting better. I will be back with a bona fide update by the weekend. I… Continue Reading Update

The post Update first appeared on velvetverbosity.com.

Tough Year and Now a Tick

Nick — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 09:38:24 +0000

No doubt, this has been one tough year. Three weeks ago I was bitten by a tick and three days later came down with symptoms in line with Lyme disease. I was very sick, and the doctor put me on antibiotics. Unfortunately, I am still sick. I had a period of feeling better, but was scant on here because I was so busy catching up on all the things that got dropped when I was sick. I had to go to the ER today and they refused to give me more antibiotics, so I am still very symptomatic. I can only concentrate on anything for a half hour at a time, and I am extremely fatigued. A level of fatigue that is impossible to understand without experiencing it. I expect to be in bed a lot until I get a proper diagnosis, or until this “non” lyme thing goes away. I will post as I can, and hope to put up the most recent round up soon.

Dear readers, you have been so good sticking with me through all the various gaps. There’s nothing I can say except that when the going gets tough, the blog seems to be the first thing I have to drop. On top of it all, my job is in jeapordy because of the economy, so that’s fun added to the madness!

Sigh.

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It’s a Post

Nick — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:35:48 +0000

Hi Internet, the 100 Words post is in process. Whew! I’m going to HAVE to start using Mr. Linky because with more and more people getting this post ready takes a long time!!

See you soon.

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The Probability Cloud

Nick — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 09:35:20 +0000

Every day we wake up with our head in a probability cloud. There are so many probabilities in just one day that we spend lifetimes trying to decode the best methods for choosing from an infinite array of choices. Every choice we make collapses the probability cloud. Remember that game show where people had to choose from one of three doors? Remember the way contestants would agonize over their choice? What if they chose the wrong door and lost. Life, as some perceive it, is like that game show writ large. Every moment becomes a choice to wring their hands over and every choice made only makes them wonder if another door would have had a better prize. The doors available are infinite, but once you open one and walk through it, all the others disappear and are lost to you forever. Of course, the flip side is that each door opened and walked through collapses the probability cloud behind you, but immediately presents you with a fresh one.

Every person approaches this “life as a game show” differently. There are those who become paralyzed and never make a choice for fear of losing something. They lose anyway. There are those who try to break the code through religion, morality, philosophy, science, popularity, or transcendence. It is their belief that if only they break the code, they will always choose the best door, and then the best door after that, and so on, and their lives will be an endless stepping through to pleasure, happiness, and freedom from any and all unpleasantries. Then there are those who say, “F**k it, I’m going to win some, I’m going to lose some”, and they don’t waste any time making their choices.

Whose right? How can we ever know when our choices are the best choices? How can we reconcile the doors we lose? I don’t know. I can’t know. So I say, “F**k it, I’m going to win some, I’m going to lose some.” Today I woke up with my head in a cloud…a probability cloud. Let’s see what’s behind door number one.

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Almost Back

Nick — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:33:35 +0000

Hi Internet, I’m almost back. I’m going to try to post this evening so come back soon!

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No 100 Words

Nick — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:33:32 +0000

Internet, I’m too swamped with broken bones and all the appointments so the 100 Words Challenge and posting will resume next week. Stay tuned.

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