Peace, Happiness, Two Virgins, and Seventy Sluts?

Had a scare yesterday where I didn’t completely read a letter I got from the VA. Thought they were cutting me out of the VA system, but actually, they were denying my emergency room claim from January. Y’know, where I did the faceplant on my kitchen floor?

Paying $170 for the damn E.R. visit is much better than having to switch all of my doctors, I have to say. Lesson learned…read EVERYTHING. Then panic.

Doctor visit this morning. My blood sugar readings are highest in the mornings, generally always above 200. So we’re moving back to an evening dose of long-acting insulin. Just a small dose, so I don’t feel all that panicked. Not too worried about crashing – my sugars are fairly under control. I haven’t had a low-sugar event in a couple of months or so.

I go back in a couple of weeks for another follow-up. New lab tests in a month, right after Shannon gets here.

The YOR exercising? Going well. I’m doing the 5-days-a-week thing. And though I haven’t yet found something that trips my trigger, I’m still sticking with it.  This week, the Zumba class starts, and even though I’m told it will kick my ass, I’m going to try it. I figure if I can get in on the ground floor, maybe I have a shot. Then again, if it kicks my ass the very first class?

There’s other stuff I haven’t yet tried, but am already convinced it’ll be too hard. A Pilates/Yoga class. Belly dancing. Hatha yoga. So far, most of my activity at the Y is treadmill (still). I tried a stationery bike thing yesterday, and that was cool. May go with that one some more. If it weren’t for my iPod, I’d be bored out of my skull. I’m still bored, but at least I have tunes. And sometimes Adam Carolla’s podcast.

Tomorrow, I go to see Ben Folds in concert. Woo hoo! Never seen him live before, and I can’t wait. Tickets were a reasonable $34. Now, if I could just cough up $70 or so to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (with Joe Cocker as an opener!), that’d rock even more.

Poppy recently wrote about filling up the self-worth tank. Good post, great idea, but no surprise, considering the source.

Soooooo, here’s the challenge: Fill up someone else’s self worth tank. Let’s say nice things about how awesome each other is so that we feel like our existence on this planet is not a waste of space, time, and energy. If you’re strong enough to say nice things about yourself, then do that too.

I’m gonna start today with the hardest part…saying nice things about ME. That shit gives me the heebie jeebies, but bear with me. I’m not well-versed at this stuff.

I’m smart. I mentioned this briefly in my 100 Things list, but my I.Q. only rarely manifests in obvious ways. Just because I’m smart doesn’t mean I don’t make plenty of bonehead moves. Oh, right…NICE things. See? Told you I’m not so great at this.

On occasion, my brilliance does shine. Case in point:

When I was a little kid, around 9 or so, my parents were both working. I had a babysitter, of course, who was a teenager and more interested in boys and cranking Queen records than keeping up with my sister and I.

My father had this amazing smutty magazine collection, which I’d recently been perusing whenever I had the chance. There were a handful of neighborhood kids over at my house and I told them I had something to show them.

We go into my parents’ bedroom and close the door. I slide open the closet door and point to the shelf up top. STACKS and STACKS of mags, each complete with naked women in lots of odd positions with naked men.

Ages of the kids ranged from 14 down to around 6 or 7. Johnny, the teen, pulled down a couple of stacks for us to look through. We all got on my folks’ bed and started paging through the mags.

Oh my God. GROSS! She has his thing in her mouth!

Why would anyone want a thing in their mouth?

Look at this! His thing is in HER thing!

She looks like she’s in a LOT of pain!

Do you think that’s what ALL policemen do with women?

Our burgeoning education of naked things came to a sudden halt, however, when I heard my father’s car pull up in front of the house.

“Oh no! It’s my DAD!”

And five boys started freaking the fuck out, gathering all the dirty magazines in a heartbeat. Most of them ran from my parents’ bedroom, not heeding my pleas for help to restore the bedroom to its proper working order.

My life was flashing before my eyes. I stacked the mags, and shoved them back up onto the closet shelf.

It was then that God decided to have me killed.

The shelf came toppling down inside the closet. And approximately 847,000 porn mags crashed to the floor, spilling everywhere.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaah!

I was dead meat. My father would be coming in at any moment. All my friends had run out the back door, retreating to leave me to my execution.

Then…a flash of brilliance. Little Karl saw what had to be done.

I shoved all the magazines back inside the confines of the closet, grabbed Midnight (my black cat), tossed her inside the closet, and closed the door. And I ran from the bedroom, just in time to greet my father at the front entryway. I was damn proud of that maneuver, proof that I could think fast on my feet and avoid certain death.

I finally admitted to my father that Midnight wasn’t the culprit…y’know, around 20 years later. Naturally, he and my stepmother both laughed and acknowledged what a smart move I’d made.

Perhaps I’m just a porn-savant, I don’t know. But either way, I’m smart.

I even understand why it’s not such a bad experience to have my thing in her mouth. And that the reason why she looks like she’s in such pain when my thing is in HER thing is because I forgot to pack my lubed shoehorn.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/36498826@N02/ / CC BY-NC 2.0