They’ll All Cowtow

I just finished a two-day road trip with my dad, my dogs, and a 14′ canoe. (Just delivering the water vessel to my mom, not actually canoeing with a half-deaf 72-year-old and two pit bulls.)

Why would I subject myself to such torture, you ask?

Well, because of these conversational gems, of course:

Dad: (pointing at a sign) Ah, ‘Welcome Center, 1 1/2 miles’, where I have changed my pants in the parking lot.

…

Dad: (to a car which was clearly pulled over for speeding) That’ll teach you to smoke dope!

…

Dad: That road is configured just the way I’d nightmared it.

…

Dad: What time do you want to get up?

Me: Eight.

Dad: Ha.

Me: I know you’re gonna wake up at 4:30, but I’m telling you that if you move around, my dogs’ll think it’s time to get up and I’ll be pissed. You better lie there and practice some meditation.

Dad: Medication?

Me: Meditation.

Dad: Medication?

Me: You better lie there and do nothing, old man. Don’t move. Meditate.

Dad: I always medicate.

…

Dad: If anything’s consistent about Shakespeare, it’s silly fucking plots.

…

As we ate breakfast in a diner:

Dad: (looking through his eyebrows at me) We may have to make several stops after this.

Me: I don’t wanna talk about it.

Dad: OK, I’ll give you the short version. (ad alta voce) IT’S DIURETIC DAY. That’s all I’ll say.

I Wish the Gum Trick Worked in Other Situations

I took Violet to the vet school this morning. She’s so sweet and scared when she goes in there. The student examined her, then called in the doc. Could be a number of things, she said.

1. She might have tendonitis. The other anti-inflammatory I had been giving her might not work for her, so if it’s tendonitis, we could try a different one.

2. She might have an inflammation caused by her immune system, called synovitis. That could be treated with steroid injections to the joint.

3. It could be an infection around the plate and screws. I thought this would be the best-case scenario; antibiotics and poof! infection gone. Turns out, if it’s an infection, the antibiotics will work, but when I stop giving them to her, the infection will come back.

I remember, before I had my wisdom teeth out, the orthodontist said something about how a spot will develop a biofilm and just keep getting re-infected. Guessing that’s the same thing.

Anyway, if that’s the case, if the antibiotics work, they’ll need to take the plate and screws out.

I failed at the second one.

Will she be OK?, I sniffled. They said she would; she doesn’t need the plate and screws anymore.

How much? $1,200.

Wah.

So this morning, they were going to sedate and x-ray her. Again. To see if it was an infection or tendonitis. How much? About two-fifty.

WAH BUT OK, DO IT.

I had actually left the hospital when the vet called me back and said she had consulted with another doctor, and they could try a course of antibiotics first and see.

So I went back and picked up a bunch of pills which were $3.50 each. I want them to work. Because I want my baby girl to stop limping. I want her to feel better. Yet if they work, I’m fucked.

Boo hoo hoo.

You Dog-Blasted Ornery No-Account Varmint

Violet’s been on Trazodone for a long time now to keep her calm while the knee heals.

(By the way, I went to my vet on Thursday. “No, it’s not normal for her to be limping still. Call the vet school.” I called the vet school. “We’re closed Thursday and Friday to move to our new facility.”

Rattin rittin hittin bloatsum!)

You may remember when I tried to switch to Benadryl for a day. Fail.

Anyway, she’s been tranq’ed up for months. Yesterday, I ran out of peanut butter to smear on the pills, and I was gonna go to the grocery store, but then I didn’t, and then I forgot to give her her quaaludes. Guess what happened.

Those were prescription sunglasses.

This morning, I tossed her pills in ranch dressing, and she slurped ’em down. Wish I’d thought of that yesterday.

Phrases from Your Profile* Which Automatically Disqualify You from My Dating Pool

not much of a reader

There’s nothing wrong with not being a reader. I just can’t imagine we could hold a mutually interesting conversation.

My relationship with my creator

Again, nothing wrong with that, and I’ve got no problem with a dude who believes in a Higher Power, but if you call It “your creator”, chances are you’re way farther along the religion spectrum than I am, and I think religion is one of those things like ‘desire for children’ where, in order to have a relationship, two people have to be relatively close.

i love to laugh

Seriously? Who writes this? Raise your hand if you hate to laugh. Or even if you’re kinda take-it-or-leave-it on the whole laughter issue.

Nobody.

That’s because everybody loves to laugh. Saying “I love to laugh” is like saying “I really enjoy orgasms”. Yeah, so does the rest of the human race, dumbass.

My reproductive organs

Let me qualify that. If you say that you overcame cancer of your reproductive organs, that’s one thing. However, if this phrase is in the section of your profile titled “Six Things I Couldn’t Live Without”…no.

I like a woman with some booty lol.

Oh, cruelest of ironies! I’ve got the booty and I lol about it regularly. What a wonder to find someone who appreciates it. Yet the fact that you write that on your dating profile makes me want to punch you in your reproductive organs.

*These are all phrases taken verbatim from OKCupid profiles. Fortunately not all from the same profile because that person would be the worst possible match for me. No, wait a minute. Forgot I already found him.

Henry Ford, Man

The skill/strength segment today was muscle-ups.

 

So, yeah. Ha ha.

Anyway, like most things CrossFit, I had to take a modification or do what they call a “progression”. My progression was having the rings about chest high—feet on the floor, ass by my feet, rings touching—and getting my chest up and through the rings using my legs. And my arms, but mostly my legs. Then jumping up until my arms were straight by my sides.

Ashley watched my first few and said I had the movement down but, for the next reps, I should make it violent, throwing my head and chest between the rings. It’s true that, with a kipping* muscle-up, that’s what you have to do.

The thought that went through my head was, “But why should I bother?”

And I realized, in that moment, that Ashley was coaching me as if I would someday do a muscle-up, while I was training as if I’d never, ever, in a million years do a muscle-up.

Listen, there are things I do well, physically. If you’ve never seen me salsa, well, that’s a shame. And I’m getting better at double-unders and Olympic lifts and whatnot. But there are certain things that I just believe are impossible for me. (And let’s be honest, chances are good I won’t ever do a muscle-up.)

I think that’s normal. I don’t think I’m a freak. In that regard, anyway. People generally believe they have limitations. That’s why the motivational poster industry exists.

But what struck me about that realization was that I wasn’t even thinking that I was thinking that. It was my reality, the water to my fish.

A wise dude who made a bunch of cars once said, “Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.”

I wonder how many things I think I can’t do, and I don’t even know that I think I can’t do them.

*using the momentum of your body, as opposed to a “dead-hang”, which is much, much harder

Re: My Need to (1) Make Lists and (2) Whoop Some Freaking Ass

As I mentioned yesterday, I make lists. I do it all the time. I’m a list-maker.

Part of the reason is that I have the short-term memory of…well, a person who has short-term memory problems.

But mainly I enjoy making lists. Actually, it’s not so much the list-making, rather it’s the crossing-off of items on said list. I’m one of those people who will add an item to my list after I’ve already done it, just so I can cross it off.

Moreover, writing a list makes everything feel real. I write down every last air squat that I do at CrossFit because I feel like, if I don’t write it down, it doesn’t count.

I told my friend Bea about this particular branch of my quite catholic mental illness, and she found

the perfect list for me.

(Courtesy of Natalie Dee.)

That simplifies things.

Put It on the List

A couple weeks ago, I was complaining on Facebook that I was uninspired by my prospects for the day:

Of all the things on my to-do list today, let’s see…yep, I want to do not a damn one of them.

…at which point, friend Deborah listed the various and sundry things she and her wife had already accomplished that morning.

I felt compelled to respond that I hadn’t been sitting on my ass:

I cooked breakfast (eggs, sweet potato home fries, and garlic scapes), walked Redford 2 miles to the gym, did planks and ring dips and squat cleans, walked Redford 2 miles back from the gym, and tried to start my new mower. Stupid fucking thing! I’ma put my foot through somebody’s ribcage! I hate gas mowers! Now I’m going to Home Depot to buy some engine starting fluid. And some mulch. That means I’ll have to mulch. Dammit. In addition, there’s grocery shopping, paying bills, and doing laundry on the list. Who can’t my to-do list include eating ice cream and having sex?

Deborah, wise woman that she is, recommended putting those last two on the list and seeing what happened.

So I did.

Of the two, I managed only one.

But 50% success rate is not bad! If I can do half of whatever’s on my list, maybe I just need to make a better list!

What should I put on my to-do list for tomorrow, Avid Bruxistists?!

My Apologies!

Sorry for all the password-protected posts of late.

Lots of business brewing in the world of the Great (or, Fair-to-Middling) and Powerful (or, Effective When It’s Absolutely Necessary and Not Too Difficult) Avid Bruxist. Work stuff. Things I had to get out of my head and into word form but things I don’t feel comfortable putting out to the whole world.

Yet.

I promise it’ll all be in the book. Which will be published when I figure out how to write a book and get an agent and a publisher.

Back to regular programming as soon as I think of something to write about.

(As I’ve mentioned, many of you can read the password-protected posts.)