And this will make me feel happy... thanks Christine.

I don't normally post twice in one day, because my posts aren't short. Christine over at A Deliberate Life just posted "And This Will Make Me Happy!" Her post was related to food. Food = Comfort and if we eat it we will feel better. That feeling better is temporary. Of course, it is. Logically, anyone knows that. I don't have a weight issue. So, what is giving me heartburn about this post? Isn't it awful when we discover things about ourselves that we don't like? We like to sugarcoat them in things that sound good. Rationalization.

*I got an email from Flash's myspace account a couple of weeks ago that I thought was from Flash, but appeared to be from his wife or significant other, or wife, or whoever saying that it was over. I posted about this. I expressed no shock. I didn't post that it gave my heart a little extra dose of happy. That isn't nice. Who revels in someone else's misery? So what that he caused me tons of misery? So what that he set back my recovery years? That is NOT taking the moral high ground. "And this will make me feel happy...."

*I know this might seem odd, but I became friends with the girl that Flash cheated on me with back in the day. It sort of became a necessity. We talked all of the time. It was a constant comparison of notes. Sharing of evidence. We talked daily for months. Yeah, it takes a long time to pin a cheater to the wall. It turns out that she and I had a lot in common. More than Flash and I, as it turns out. Life is a weird thing. After the whole thing with Flash was said and done we missed talking to each other. Like I said, life is a strange beast. So, we still talked. "And this will make me feel happy..."

*Turns out that she cheated on her husband to be with Flash. Yeah, she paid a lot for that indiscretion. And it caused a lot of pain in her household. Her husband is an alcoholic and the fallout just kept falling. Eventually, her marriage went all to hell. It got really ugly. We stopped talking. He couldn't understand our connection surpassed Flash. All he could see was the reminder of an affair and it was rubbing his nose in it. So, I wished her well and let go. I didn't think that they would make it. I hoped, but wasn't at all convinced. Maybe not talking to me. "And this will make me feel happy..."

*Yesterday I get a friend request from her on facebook and she is good. Great. Even. Turns out that she and the husband are back together. They were separated and divorcing when last we spoke. It appears that they turned it around. She sent me a message. She made no mention of their problems in the email she sent me. So, I don't know if they fixed them or glossed them over. I know that they moved and started a new business. I also know that she found me by contacting Flash because she couldn't remember my last name. WTH? "And maybe this will make me feel happy..."

*I didn't respond yet to her email because I have no idea what to say. I pride myself on forgiveness. Seriously. I talk and talk and talk about it. I really thought I had gotten there with Flash. However, the idea that SHE couldn't remember my name when WE had a more substantial relationship than she and he ever did and she FORGOT my last name, but remembered his galls me. She had to contact him to contact me. And her husband is suddenly okay with it? WTH? It is not that I don't want her to forgive him because not forgiving sucks your soul. I don't even know what I am saying. I guess I would have liked contacting him to be more distasteful. "And then I'll be happy..."

*And that brought me full circle to wondering if he had created a facebook page. Oh yeah, I had to go there. Sure enough. He did. And nothing is private. It is all out there. Apparently, he and the girl are still together. The question of their marriage is still a question. Not surprising. The fact that he would lie about it on myspace not surprising. Lying about anything doesn't shock me. The only honest thing he says is in his About Me where he opens with saying that he is "defective." He nails that. Of course, there is a lot of quoting of Bible verse to lead the unsuspecting astray. And then he makes a comment on his father's comment of, "I LOVE MY DADDY." This is the same man who cheated on his mother for years, leaving her for a much younger woman when she quit her job, and lost her health insurance. She is now an alcoholic. The man doesn't have an admirable bone in his body. I heard not one kind thing about the man the entire time we were together. And rightly so. I guess when it comes down to the pot and the kettle, what are you going to do? "And then I'll be happy...."

*Now, that we have covered Flash, his philandering father, his alcoholic mother, and the other woman, it all comes back to me. When will I be happy? I have already told myself that he was just the teacher of a lesson. I believe that. If if hadn't been him, it would have been someone else. I signed up for the lesson. Liars and cheaters and lie and cheat. That is what they do. I think of the story of the boy who picked up the baby snake and put it in his pocket. When he pulls it out, it bites him. He gets angry with the snake. There is no point in that. It is in the nature of the snake to bite. The lesson is to stop putting it in your pocket. I know that I can stop visiting Flash's internet sites. I have stayed off them for years at a time. That makes me happy. Not knowing what he is doing makes me happy.

*I suppose the Catch 22 here is, "Can I re-establish a relationship with the other woman without having Flash right there in my subconscious mind and disrupting my life? Or, more importantly, is this rolling around to remind me that I don't have this handle on forgiveness that I thought I had? I forgave her a long time ago. She didn't owe me anything. She hadn't made any made any commitments to me. In fact, I wasn't anything to her when she and Flash did their thing, but Flash was a different story. Right now, the idea of Flash's house getting egged is really funny to me. Or TP'd. Especially if it is by every woman he has screwed over. Or maybe finding someone that he really loves and having them do to him what he has done to other people. I don't think that is the definition of forgiveness. So, that means I have some work to do in the forgiveness department. Dammit. I would really rather just throw rotten tomatoes at his house and be done with it. Because "and then I'll be happy...."

LEGS BACK MAN

Hello blogging world. I promised you your weekly inspirational music post today and *tada* here it is. I still got it all going on, but the world still goes round. I am still sleeping more than I am awake. I am pleased to report that The Powers That Be decided to remove the anvil from my head last night while I was sleeping. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We are back to our regularly scheduled migraine, and I couldn't be happier. That would be the one where I get a little bit of time every day where I can think straight. This would be that window.

I was really having trouble yesterday with my Inspirational To Me song. Otherwise, I would have gone ahead with the post. I did add some music I liked to an already extensive list of youtube action on my favorites. However, nothing really said this is the one. I usually know it when I find it. My warped sense of humor started out my search today by looking for Pat Boone's version of Ozzy's Crazy Train set to Buffy The Vampire Slayer clips. Yeah, that is kind of where I am living. That would have made me laugh... a lot. Surprisingly, no one has used that long with any clips. I am really shocked. I would have thought someone would have had a field day with it. Anyway, people surprise me all of the time, in good and bad ways. So...moving on...

I looked over ~ again ~ everything that I had and still remained unsatisfied. So, I sat and thought about it. I did have this one Tim McGraw song that is new. Tim is doing lots of movies lately. Have you noticed? Not just movies. But good movies. He was in The Blind Side. He is in Country Strong, which I want to see. There are some artists that make me think of other artists. Tim always makes me think of Kenny Chesney. They came out about the same time. Tim came out first. However, Kenny came out not long after, and they are good friends.

That made me think of the first time I saw Kenny Chesney in concert. It was at a fair in Michigan. I didn't even know who he was. He was the first guy on stage. The opener. I was going to a lot of fairs and concerts that summer and he was opening for Sawyer Brown or Alabama. Or maybe Sawyer Brown and Alabama were playing together and he was the opener for both. I just don't remember. It was the mid-90s. I had decent seats. Front row under the covered area. So, I wasn't right up on the stage, but I wasn't cooking in the sun, either. I remember Kenny coming out and playing a few songs and thinking that the kid had talent. He was shy as all get-out, but he had talent. Some woman yelled something off-color to him and he blushed so hard that I could see it from where I was sitting. He was so taken aback that he was completely at a loss for words. He started saying things like, "Well, I don't know about that ma'am." There were a lot of ma'ams thrown in and feet shuffling. His band saved him by starting the next song. I remember nudging my friend and saying, "That is the cutest thing I have ever seen." Yeah, Kenny Chesney was green on the concert circuit. He was still easily flustered and surprised by people. That wears off. Eventually, you become jaded. Nothing anyone does will surprise you. By now, I am sure that he has had so many panties thrown his way that he takes it in stride. Probably throws them to his panty collector and says, "Add them to the pile." I was glad I got to see him before that. When he had no show. No artifice. When he was just a kid hoping to make it doing something he loved.

Well, he made it big-time. He has been Entertainer of the Year so many times now that he is giving Garth Brooks a run for his money. Why? Because he puts on a damn good show. He feels like everyone paid for the ticket and they deserve 110% every time he goes out there. When he rolled through Columbia, SC, back in 2004, a decade later I got to see him again. He wasn't that same kid who blushed at off-color remarks and no one knew who he was. Instead, he was The Main Event. He filled an arena. He came up through the floor with fog and lights and lots of effects. And the race was on. 110%. "Looking back at the moments black and white. I wouldn't change a thing for the worse, for the better."



Kenny and I are a lot alike. I, too, am gone and I ain't back yet. It just isn't quite in the same way. I also wouldn't change any of the things in my past, because I think they all happened for a reason. They were teaching moments, and I needed to learn the lesson. I just needed to sing that song about being not back yet with a little more enthusiasm, and little less bitterness, and that helped. Yeah, I am gone and I ain't back yet. I suppose that maybe we never get back to where we started, and that is a good thing. The point is to move forward. There is no power in the past. Anyway, I will always have a soft spot for Kenny Chesney, and his song OLD BLUE CHAIR will always be one of my favorites. Love, love that song.

Well, now that we have satisfied that Inspirational To Me portion of this blog, let's move on to the 80s and what was rockin' MTV. So many bands in the 80s were pretty. Do you remember that? With that advent of video, prettiness was very important. Of course, Madonna notched up the sexy factor. However, even the boys were wearing make-up and big hair was totally in for everyone in the 80s. My own beloved John Taylor of Duran Duran was a pretty boy. So, what did you do if you weren't pretty? You had to have another hook.

ZZ Top had a car. A red car. With keys that were ZZs. They also had rad guitars and this signature move with their hands. And they disappeared. They also tended to always show up in times of need and be on the side of the underdog. Who doesn't love that? Oh, and there were always very hot girls popping out of the car. (That was the answer to the if you aren't a pretty boy question. People loved ZZ Top videos. The CAR and what might pop out of it any given time was FASCINATING!!!)





See what I mean? If you don't believe me. There are more ZZTop vids to watch. Gotta love that car. Those keys. The arm move. And the disappearing men. How do they get that many people in that car???? Awesome. Freaking awesome. This is the kind of thing that teenagers can think about for hours on end. Way to go guys!!!! I have said it before, but I will say it again. I miss my MTV.

D IS FOR DIARRHEA

This is going to be short. Very short. I am not dead. I am also not doing inspirational song day today. Tomorrow. I will do it tomorrow. I have the 80s music picked out.

I am still sick with the unending cold. And my migraine is giving it ia run for it it's money in what will make me more miserable faster. Yeah, it is THAT kind of day. Think of a spike being drilled through your head through your right eye and into your temple and then have someone pound on it repeatedly. That is where I am living today. Not a big happy place. Offset that with blowing your nose every thirty seconds and voila. Welcome to my world. I also still have the unending bacterial stomach thing that sends me running for the toilet constantly. It is just sunshine and roses here. I was hoping that since I delivered that sample on Tuesday I might not suffer through the weekend with that shit. Pun intended. No such luck.

I will say that the sample delivery was the only bright spot of my entire week. I happened to have a sample kit from a previous incident back in February when antibiotics killed all of the good bacteria in my stomach. Couldn't figure that one out. Never had diarrhea before that just wouldn't quit. If talking about poop is TMI for you, turn back now, this isn't the blog for you. Anyway, I was at the doctor's office anyway when this came up and we figured out that it was caused by an antibiotic. I really wanted to try taking a round of probiotic, but I had her write a Rx for flagyl, which usually kills the bad bacteria in the event that the probiotic didn't work. The probiotic didn't work. I took the flagyl. Problem solved. However, she gave me a catch kit in case I needed to bring back a sample to have it cultured. I kept the kit. Fast forward to now. I use the catch kit and send her an email that I am bringing in the sample.

I get to her office on Tuesday and ask for her nurse when I get to reception. The girl checked to see if she was there. She confirmed she was there, and then said, "No." She didn't ask why I wanted to see her. Just no. I hate that. So... I pull out my stool sample which is in the proper container and sealed in a bio hazard bag and start talking.

"Well, I wanted to give her this stool sample." Naturally, I didn't lower my voice at all. And she went green. It was beautiful. "I wasn't sure how long the sample would be viable. I took it at noon and it is 3:00 now, but I don't want to just drop it at the lab if it isn't any good." She started rolling back on her chair like it might jump out of the bag and splat all over her.

"Let me find Susan." That is my doctor's nurse. As I said, it was a thing of beauty. It is amazing the power that poop and puke have. Those two things motivate people like nothing else. You whip those things out and people scurry into action. I didn't get to see Susan, but she came back with another bio hazard bag for my sample and she said that Susan told her to take it to the lab. This scenario would be giving me warm fuzzies right now if I had RESULTS. Instead, I still have diarrhea. So, unless I get something Monday I may be trotting back in there with more poop in a plain old ziploc and seeing what happens. Enough is enough. They won't let me talk to the lab, no one returns my phone calls. Poop gets action. Well, I can show them some poop. I love my doctor, but I freaking hate bureaucracy.

You would think that they would know better than to mess with the sick people. Huh.

To answer the question on your mind. Yes, right now insanity is reigning. By Monday, two more days of crazy will have come and gone. I really hope that they call me, take my calls, return my email, something. I do have one more bio hazard bag. A ziploc, a bio hazard bag, and that catch thing. That's really all you need. I might go in my pajamas next time. Let them know I really mean business.