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2001-11-08 / 7:27 p.m. The Lazy Activist, Doctors, Cat Health, Google Hits, All Kinds of Shit!~ Yeah, sure, I unlock my diary so I can get more Google hits! Whoo hoo! Check out the latest: "nice and open vaginas" "embarassing nude photos" "diaryland anal sex condom" It all makes this diary sound kinda racy, huh? Wow, this is like a sex diary or something. Right? Hah! If you only knew....wait, you do know, anyone who's delved deeply (ooo, that sounds sexual too!), I haven't had sex in almost exactly one whole year. And before that one time, yes, one night folks, it was nearly two whole years. I'm old, I don't get laid anymore. In fact, I think I'm all through with that sex stuff. Yeah, it was fun, but it's not part of my life any more. Yeah, yeah, it's me with the nun story again. I am going to marry God, to become a nun, live in a convent and grow organic fruits and vegetables, bake bread, and pray. No TV, no music, except for hymns. Just good solid earthly living, serving my God. Whose diary is this, anyway? To be read as "Whose diary is this? Anyway?". It's more fun that way. No, I'm not downtown giving George Bush hell. No, I'm not downtown with the assholes in the Coalition, the ones who ignore absolutely everything I post to their silly "list serve". Nor am I joining the very lazy protest group, the action center, the ones who are all action, yes sir. They're cool, but I doubt they're mobilizing. (oh, that's not true, they'll be there, I simply won't, I'M the lazy one) Besides, we've got the big CNN thing Saturday, and I am committed, er, to that. Yes, I'll be there, I told Anna we could go have food and beers after. We know how to protest. Some chanting, some sign waving, then a pitcher or two. Yeah, she's European, don'tcha know. Okay, so last night I panicked about Gladys. The whiskers on one side of her face are gone, broken off - wait, let me have a look....she has one left. One fucking whisker! Now, I wrote somewhere in here about this before, and no, I'm not going to do a search and link to it, and blah, blah, because it's just a diary, and no one's reading except Googlers, but I wrote that she needed some "whisker strengthening gel" or something, and I remember Rockstarkat linking to me because of it. She got a kick out of that. So, anyway, Gladys has patterned hair loss on her limbs, and now the whisker thing, and yeah, this tumor/cyst thing on her belly, which I monitor all the time, it causes her no pain and doesn't grow, so I don't worry, but I started to worry. And I got out my copy of The Cornell Book of Cats because that's a great book, even though I did buy it in 1990 and it's kinda outdated now, well, my version, but I looked up tumors/cysts, and hair loss, and read all kinds of technical info on what might be the causes, treatments, etc., even read the geriatric section, the bereavement section, euthanasia, etc., and I started really worrying then. This is what I do. I read and read and read, and self-diagnose, with them, with me, and then I worry a lot, do nothing, and soon forget to worry, and just relax. That's my M.O. Besides, I hate doctors. Oh, it's a very long story, maybe beginning with my first rectal exam...no, wait, it was the doctor who removed my pilonidal cyst. Yeah, it was him, it was the horrible scar he left me. It was his insensitivity. Then it was the doctor who treated my mom when she was dying, the way he asked me to leave the room, then never talked to me about her condition. To this day people ask me what kind of cancer she had, "What kind was it?" and I can't answer. "Uh, it was in her throat, they radiated her neck, she couldn't swallow, or drink or eat or anything, she starved, lost her appetite anyway, shrank to nothing, died of pneumonia". Pretty. Kids, don't smoke cigarettes, okay? Oh yeah, unless you see someone die of cancer due to smoking a LOT over many years (and BOTH my parents died that way) you don't know. You just don't know. So, I grew to hate doctors. I saw a Nurse Practitioner for my pap smears. But that's a long story too. I loved my dentist, but he fell off his roof and broke his hand, can't be a dentist with one hand. I quit going to the dentist (after going for cleanings every six months for YEARS) in '95. I quit going for pap smears (went off the Pill, it was no longer a "requirement") in '95. I took the cats in for their shots, and the vet., one I'd never been to before, gave Norma her shot at a funny angle, she developed a huge lump there, I panicked, took her back, paid for a fucking office visit for another vet. at the same clinic to tell me it was due to the injection. Fuck doctors, I said. FUCK doctors, vets., dentists who want to know how I spend my day when I'm not working for a living, nurse practitioners who recommend useless tests. I gave up, I ran out of money too. I was thinking about it on my way home tonight....six years ago....I was forced to move. The Olympics were on their way, all the landlords turned into greedy monsters, my own raising my rent 50%, why? Because he could. 50fuckingpercent! I had to move. I had gone through my second inheritance, I was running low, it was hold on to the IRA time, it was hold on time, it was OH NO, HOLD ON, What the fuck do I do NOW time? And I moved, and I struggled, and I worked two jobs, like a lot of people do, I know, and I went into major credit card debt, and I said, I don't need the Pill, I don't need Pap Smears, I don't care, and my teeth are impeccable, the every six month cleaning thing is a joke, the hygienist takes 10 minutes to clean these babies, and the cats are indoors, only go on the deck, they're fine, all is well. And that's how it stayed. Six years. Now, Gladys has no hair on her forelegs, her whiskers are broken (I found out what that may be though......Norma may do it inadvertently when they tussle!), and a tumor/cyst thing, which according to The Cornell Book of Cats, could be breast cancer! Yeah, mammarian cancer!! OMIGOD! And I'm getting old, I'm forty, for chrissakes, and I have problems too, and my car is old, and has problems, and everything I have or am is basically old and run down. Okay, wait, Norma and Gladys are mostly very healthy, spry even, happy, I think, they play, they laugh, well, it seems that way, they run and bounce around, like kittens, it's not so bad. And I look awfully young, except for that new wrinkle under my eye, but all is not so bad..... But I got scared last night reading that book, on commercial breaks during "Temptation Island 2" (Sleazy, yeah!). So........I called a couple clinics at the end of the day today, at work, and the first one was okay, but the woman gasped when I told her how long it's been since the girls have had their shots (strike 1), and she said it would be $72 per "kitty" (strike 2 - they're "cats", not "kitties", to you, a stranger), and then I re-examined their yellow pages ad and it said, "declawing, tendonotomy..." - HUH? TENDONOTOMY????? What the fuck? For what? Remove their end joints for declawing, that's bad enough, then their tendons? Why, so they won't jump on your furniture? (steeeeeerike 3, you are OUT!). The next place, both cat clinics only, had a very nice, chatty, but very nice and informative phone person, and their ad said, "alternatives to declawing", "emphasis on geriatrics" - Yay!!!! So, we talked, I told her how it is, she was accepting, she was nice, I asked her out (I did not!), and I made an appointment. I don't care about the cost - thank god they take VISA - but it's the attitude, it's the environment, it's the ambiance, man, and I was SO excited. Who gets that excited making a fucking doctor's appointment? Me. It's long overdue, I don't want my girls to die because I neglected them. I don't want Gladys to have cancer, I want to rule things out, I want to go in and ask, "What about this?" and "Is this okay?", you know, stuff like that. So, I will. N and G don't know it yet, but we will. We will go, December 1st. Our first veterinarian visit since December of '95. Wow. I hope it goes well. I think it will. Hardest part will be their fear, the stress the visit will cause them. I told Lulu and L. at work that N and G haven't left the apartment since we moved in (excluding the one time Norma ran out the front door, got to the top of the stairs outside and froze in her tracks, as if to say, "Uh oh, now what do I do?"), that's in 4 years. L. doesn't like cats, nor understand them and called that cruel and unusual, but I know better. N and G have everything, including a caregiver who cleans their litter box after every use. Yeah, I scoop it as they use it. I do. My hands are tired of typing, this is coming to a close. I'm glad I made the call, I want to take care of N and G, they're my girls, and I don't want to cause their deaths with my own neglect. Period. They will get "checked out", maybe get some vaccinations. Maybe. The car? Me? My teeth? One step at a time, slowly, surely. Time to watch Bush, here, in my town, and from my sofa, not on tape later. I should be there, with a sign, but I didn't go buy poster board, I wasn't prepared, and I wasn't into it. Simple. Saturday.....? Yeah. You'll see me there. Hey, wait, Bush isn't on CBS, they're showing "Survivor". Wow!! I'll say it again, fucking WOW! I'm taping "Survivor" and I'm gonna check out Bush. Oh, I've neglected to write that I'm talking to L. lately, at work, the one who used to hum incessantly and nonsensically, not to mention, non-musically, and mucho gratingly......yeah, the one who racially attacked me in March, yeah, boy do I forgive or what?? I ordered some Avon from her yesterday. Yikes! Am I sick or something? No, we had NO PHONES, remember? We had them today. All was normal, very busy, very normal, today. Almost even stressful. I have email from the girl from high school, the woman who was a girl when I knew her, the one who sought me out via Classmates.com, or whatever. She wrote, said she remembered my smile, I wrote back, that was that....but here she is. I'm afraid to read it. Why? Cost of the War in Iraq
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