The View From The Group W Bench

For those of you who don't recognize the allusion (most of you under 30, I suspect), it's from Arlo Guthrie's 17 minute long classic "Alice's Restaurant" - at one point he goes in for his draft board hearing, and gets placed on the Group W bench because he had been arrested and convicted of littering:

• Group W's where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers!

• And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly 'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?" And I said, "Littering." And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench.

I frequently find myself wondering what a good little hippie peace-freak like myself is doing working for the US Army Corps of Engineers (I'm good with the Engineers part of it - I speak fluent geek, after all, but the US Army occasionally chafes a bit.)  Especially what the heck I've been doing working for them for almost 26 years now - more than half my life in the same office, even the same phone number.

For the most part, I'm good with it - after all, Portland District is one of the few Corps offices that has a strictly civil works mission.  We keep the harbors and rivers up and down the West Coast navigable, we generate serious amounts of hydropower, we have really awesome parks, we cleaned up after both Mt St Helens and the Exxon Valdez - we do good work, and don't have to shoot anyone to do it (although don't ask me about what we would like to do to the blasted sea lions that keep messing with the salmon at our dams.)  It's a red-headed stepchild of a district, and I've always been Queen of the Weirdos, so we fit well together.

But today.  Today we got yet another reminder memo from our District Commander that even though I've got medical issues that would easily qualify me for medical marijuana, even though recreational marijuana is about to be legal in my state (in two days)...  not for me.  Not until I retire.  Because even though I already take painkillers for my knees that would put the average person to sleep for a couple of days, and work right through it, trying a joint would render me "not moral enough to join the army after committing my special crime..."  Retirement can not come fast enough.

Another Reason Why I'm *From* Utah

Don't get me wrong - I'm not ranking on my home state.  It's a very nice state - emphasis on the "nice".  Most of my relatives are still there, the people are friendly, the food is incredible, the air is lovely (if a little thin - once you get used to living at 50 feet above sea level, 7,000 feet is a little hard to take.)  But I never really quite fit in - as I often say, I'm the neon-purple sheep of the family.  It's not that I'm the black sheep, shunned and banned by the rest.  No, I'm the one that they just kind of look at out of the side of their eyes (and every once in a while one of them will sidle up and ask me where I buy my hair dye.)

Mostly though, the state itself has let me know in various subtle ways that I'm really not their kind of people.  There's the air thing, for example.  Then there's the heat.  I was born in Washington, Utah - just south of St. George.  For you non-Utahns, think Vegas without the lights, the booze or the strippers.  Lovely in the wintertime, but God-awful in the summer.  I'm talking 115 in the shade kind of God-awful.  I remember riding Grandpa's motorcycle down to the fields one day - it was so hot that the breeze wouldn't cool you, because it was hotter than the sweat it was trying to evaporate. I, on the other hand, am a) one shade beyond phosphorescent and tend to burst into flame after 15 minutes in the sun, and b) get heat headaches to the point where it feels like my brain is expanding outside my skull every time the temp gets up over 90.  So not built for that kind of weather...

Normally, it's ok - my adopted home of Oregon treats me well, with 222 cloudy days a year.  But every once in a while... like this weekend, we're talking up over 100, and not a cloud in sight. So... I guess what I'm saying here, Oregon, is that you can ask Utah.  I'm a fickle bitch.  Don't make me move to Alaska.

"Lift Up Your Hearts And Sing"

One of my friends on Facebook posted this link today - but it's nothing that I didn't already know:

http://elitedaily.com/life/culture/sing-in-car-happier-healthier-live-longer/1089113/

I can't remember not singing in the car - it's almost an autonomic system for me.  Close door, turn key, open mouth... Part of it I can blame on my mother.  When you're the only child of a working, single mother in the 60s and 70s, you spend a lot of time in the car with her.  It seemed like we were always heading somewhere, and we didn't have the luxury of Sirius or XM (heck, we didn't have an 8-track until I was 14 or so - and then the only tape my mom had was Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez.  That was a hell trip from northern Oregon down to southern Utah.) 

So, we'd sing.  Anything and everything - if the radio happened to be working, great, if not, we'd improvise.  Fortunately, I have a weird memory, filled with song lyrics - the part of my brain that should be devoted to nuclear physics or curing cancer has all the words to Crocodile Rock or Leaving on a Jet Plane in it.  And we wouldn't sing quietly - we'd belt it out, not always in the same key, but always confidently. 

In fact, that's one of the ways I knew Roger was the one for me - driving down the highway with mom, and I realized we were all singing along to Willie Nelson.  3 different keys, but all the same lyrics.  And the way I know that I'm the one for him is that he puts up with my singing, even when he really would rather just listen to the actual artist.  That's true love. 

Fun With Medications

I'm a firm believer in better living through chemistry - well, forget better living, just plain managing to stay alive with the judicious amount of pills and shots and... But the side effects do tend to build.  For example, I don't remember what it's like not to have a dry mouth, and then there's the night sweats - love waking up in a puddle. 

But the biggest pain is digestion.  Have you ever noticed that every single list of side effects either includes constipation or diarrhea (or sometimes both?)  Trying to titrate the perfect balance between a brick stuck in your abdomen and Old Faithful shooting out the back end is tricky, to say the least.  There's laxatives and stool softeners galore, but for my money, the best option is Russell Stover's sugar-free chocolates.  However, you have to respect the Stover's.  One won't do the trick, two... sometimes, but three seems to be the magic number.  Do not - I repeat, DO NOT go for five, thinking that the first three don't seem to be working, might as well add a couple more.  I spent most of last night in the bathroom, regretting that decision intensely.  You would think I would have learned my lesson before now, but no - I seem doomed to repeat it.

Doing Much Better

I've come back to terms with my life and its limitations.  (And spent the past couple of days being schooled in faith and grace - it's one amazing church that can turn out congregants that are that loving and truly Christian in the best sense of the word in the most horrible of circumstances.) 

Plus, I've spent part of today indulging in soul-reparation therapy.  A lazy Saturday afternoon nap with my man and my boy...  A warm, soft snuggle in a cool, dark room - nothing in the world is so luxurious.  Just laying there, curled together (and with a little warm heater of love wormed up between us - Moose will not be left out), nowhere to go, nothing to do until later in the day, the world shut out behind the bedroom door.  I am a lucky woman - I just need to keep reminding myself of that. 

Minor Medical Meltdown

Sitting here, crying my eyes out, not sure why - I figured it would be best to try to write it out. 

You all know I've been trying to lose weight to help with getting rid of Hank.  One of the things that I'm trying is Qsymia - it's this weight-loss drug that's a combination of a couple of drugs.  Of course, since it's a weight-loss drug, heaven forbid that it be easy to acquire, and they won't pay any for it - I'm on my own there.  But since I have to get it through the Kaiser Pharmacy, and they want to make sure it safe (I'm ok there), after waiting 4 weeks for them to get back to me, now they want me to go get a pregnancy test done.

Yeah.  A pregnancy test.  They have access to my files there.  They know that I'm two years into having a kobold invade my uterus and start trying to claw his way out.  They know that I'm 50 years old, and my one attempt at pregnancy ended in a miscarriage before I actually knew I was pregnant.  They know that at this point, it's more likely that Mary will rise from her grave, head back to Bethlehem and give birth in another manger than I will get pregnant.

But let's just go ahead and rub my nose in my failure as a female just one more time.  If my doctor weren't on leave, I don't think this would have happened - she's great at protecting me from Kaiser's more insane contradictions, but sadly, she's out this week, so I'm left sitting here, crying.