Deviant Rambling

After months of arguably pointless deliberations, the supreme court struck down student loan forgiveness with the least surprising vote, 6-3. It is a decision that felt preordained from the moment forgiveness was announced by the current administration. The rational among us saw the plan as a political gambit with just about zero chance of holding up to the rigors of scrutiny.

Today was just the punctuation to close out an exhausting run-on sentence.

There will be protests in Washington for the rest of the weekend but the voices will fall on deaf ears. America’s most ridiculous celebration of self-aggrandizing is next week and all of the puppets will take the week off to celebrate how great of a job they’ve done to us.

I have exactly zero stake in this, but people very near and dear to me have once again been promised something by one part of their government only for another part of the same government to say “Not really, though.”. It’s the perpetual joke that we are always the subject of.

I remain outside the whole thing and I’m better off for it, but it does affect me through others. That will never sit right with me.

The promise we were sold as young men and women was that the path forward was clear. Education is the path to a good life, so you can rest assured that debt incurred in the name of education is the good kind. Just one problem though…

THERE IS NO GOOD DEBT.

I hope the education was worth the 30 or 40 years of your lives that you’ll have to devote to working so the government doesn’t take everything you own to pay the tab. These debts follow you to the grave and if you have anything when you die, they’ll get out the shovel.

We will be the first generation that gets punished for doing all of the right things at the wrong time, but we won’t be the last. Unless we refuse to accept this kind of thing lying down, check out of the system, and make a new one. The old ways are dead or dying, and I’m happy to help keep them in the ground for good.

Anarchy 2024.

There are fires that are so numerous and large burning in Canada that we are getting bombarded by the cloud of debris, haze, and smoke all the way down in the Midwest. It makes it difficult to go outside and accomplish anything, since the air is tough to breathe.

In fact, it’s so dense that you can sit and watch it crawl through like the heavy cloud that it is. This has caused me to retreat inside to do some of my work today, but I know I’ll be looking outside wishing I could be working on the motorhome.

The fact of the matter is, though, the work I get done inside in the first world comforts of a modern home, will be the work that actually pays me. Working on Dolly is satisfying but only ends up costing money, not making any. I have to be mindful of this, especially as we approach a time when we may be able to make use of the thing. Getting up and down the road takes money, so I’ll have to earn some of it.

There is still some weird aversion I feel to the very concept of money, and I will need to continue trying to reframe that or I will never find the balance of work/life I am after. If only I could just abandon my principles for the sake of the chase, I’d be a wealthy, hollow, man.

A lot of what I spend my time doing is staring broadly into space putting together sentences. It’s pulling words from thin air and arranging them to be palatable. But it probably just looks like I’m doing nothing, staring at the breeze.

I often find the words on that breeze, but sometimes they blow right by me, onto the next person searching for them. I accept the ones that land as a gift from the randomness of the universe, and I surrender that they can’t all land where I need them to.

At very least, I have the cool air of this late spring morning. At most, I have the untapped energy of the universe. Typically the words are somewhere in the middle, where everything else is.

We have acquired a 1997 Fleetwood Jamboree Searcher which we have dubbed Dolly, our soon-to-be workhorse road trip vehicle:

This is a big deal. It’s a chance to hit the road and have some comforts of home away from home. We are still in the process of learning all about this world but when we have a basic grasp we’re gonna trial run somewhere close.

Excited for more adventures.

I’m not sure if the number is accurate but I feel like I’ve tried to do and be 1,000,000 things in my life. So many that I’ve decided to commit them to their own, separate, project.

I realize the irony, of course, that this may just be another thing with zero purpose other than to explore and play. This is the direction I’ve always found the most meaning in life, though.

There will be some writing work mixed in throughout so I can actually get paid to do something I enjoy, and I can add one to the growing list.

Ran some errands the other day and saw one of my brother’s childhood friends out and about. He saw me and we did the customary exchange of pleasantries and he asked what I was doing now. I told him I was writing blog posts of different types for clients and he got a sort of glazed over look in his eyes.

I have noticed this look come across the face of a few people that I’ve told I write to make money. It is as though they can’t wrap their minds around that concept and I am watching them try to work it out in real time. I think in the future I will just tell them that it’s no different than any other kind of work you do with your hands that is creative. I’m not sure that will help, they’ll still probably see me as some asshole who makes money sitting on a couch (currently).

There is also always a little bit of astonishment to that last fact, and the fact that the person understands I could be doing this from anywhere on the planet that has the internet. It still stops old-schoolers in their tracks when you say it though, it’s the kind of thing that is the death of all forward progress in the conversation. If you want to move along with your damn day, it requires at least a little elaboration if not a full on accounting.

It’s times like those I want to just say that what I do for my dollars isn’t who I am, it’s an interesting part of me, but it’s one small facet. Unless someone steers the conversation that way I tend to avoid it because I also find it to be the least interesting part about everyone else.

Work is the only thing for some people, though, and they all have my sympathy.

I was placed on a lifting restriction of 10 pounds after surgery and it made me realize how many things I do that are relatively easy for me normally that I take for granted. This also made me realize how much my favorite humans rely on me to be strong enough to do things I consider ordinary and fairly simple.

That being said, I have taken to just saying that things weigh 10 pounds even if they are 5 times that and I’m lifting them with one arm. So far, I haven’t made any really expensive mistakes, and I do find myself stopping short of what I would have done prior to this surgery. I know I’ll get back to what was normal before May 1st so I’m not worried, in fact I’m quite optimistic about the direction of my health in general.

Tomorrow is my follow-up appointment with the surgeon for him to poke me and ask how things are going. We’ll probably discuss what I need to do to improve my overall health some more and the possibility of a surgery to correct any of the old hernias that haven’t affected me much yet.

Getting older every day, I guess that’s how it goes.

Years of issues with my gallbladder led up to the decision to get it removed on May 1st, 2023, just a few days ago. Now that I have found my way out of the persistent fog of general anesthesia and past loads of post-operative soreness, I feel I can make some observations.

1.) I was concerned that I would wake up to a new zipper due to my past surgical history. This concern was one I carried between the consultation appointment and the day of my surgery. It was only after waking up and hearing that everything went as planned that the concern was gone.

2.) Laparoscopic surgery is a truly unbelievable development of modern medicine. I know it has been around for a long time but this was the first time I’ve ever had one done and it’s incredible. I had an organ removed 3 days ago and I’m not drugged up and recovering at the hospital still. I was home about 3 hours after I arrived at the hospital and I’ve had zero noteworthy issues.

3.) Opioids just make me sad and sleepy. Post-operative pain is the kind of that warrants this kind of medication and I’m glad it exists, but I was happy that I could stop using it today. I’ve switched to acetaminophen and ibuprofen and that seems to be doing the trick just fine. This is another nod to laparoscopic procedures, because if I had an open surgery, I’d have potentially had to take those drugs longer. No thanks.

4.) Food doesn’t concern me nearly as much now. I spent years being nervous eating anything even remotely fatty because my gallbladder might decide to put me down for days at a time. I know that the surgical soreness I am experiencing is worth it for the peace of mind knowing that useless (to me) organ can’t do that to me any more.

5.) The changes in food habits were largely beneficial to my overall wellness and I intend to maintain many of the changes I have implemented. If I avoid overdoing it on foods that would piss off my gallbladder, I won’t gain a bunch of weight or feel like garbage in general. Quitting drinking was a big deal too, but the damage had already been done from that.

6.) I have had more surgeries than most people ever will and it’s strange to consider this fact. My surgical history started when I was 1 year old and that is insane to be able to live this long and report on it. I know I’m lucky for how things have panned out.

7.) It’s probably too early to say I have a clean bill of health, but this was a big step in the right direction. I see this procedure as a crucial part of the process of determining where my overall health is and addressing reality as it is. Once I have recovered I intend to get blood tests to determine if my liver function has returned to normal. Better safe than sorry.

8.) My gallbladder was actively failing when it was removed. The surgical notes taken specifically noted the “markedly enlarged” appearance of my gallbladder, as well as the presence of multiple stones. I needed validation that I wasn’t imagining things and this was confirmation for me. When you get convinced you have a condition, you start looking for evidence to confirm your diagnosis, no matter how ill-informed it may be. I knew what I was feeling, where it was, and had enough diagnostic information to know I wanted to be done thinking about it.

9.) Previous open abdominal surgery caused what are referred to as adhesions, areas where the healing process created scar tissue attached at all kinds of points on the inside. These points of attachment become obstacles to be removed and navigated during surgery and I had several apparently.

10.) I also had (have) multiple incisional hernias from previous surgeries and may need to have them remediated at some point with a follow-up surgery and the installation of a hernia mesh. I suspect we will discuss this at my surgical follow-up, but the prognosis isn’t all that bad for these, so I’m not too worried about them.

I am still in the process of learning things about myself, surgery, and where the two collide, but this was an overwhelmingly positive experience. I can’t recommend it enough if you need it, night and day feelings shift.

I have had some fairly significant health issues over the years and one of them in 2011 not only killed me but put me on a medicine indefinitely that a person shouldn’t stay on for years. I never bothered to look into the long term side effects of this medicine (Omeprazole) because I trusted the judgment of my doctors. They asked if everything was going well, I said yes, they said great, stay on it.

So I did. For about 12 years.

Now other things are going wrong and I figured what is the harm in looking up side effects, right? So I did, and I’m glad.

Turns out, this drug can cause kidney issues, liver issues, and bone density issues when you get older. The first two are because your body metabolizes it there, and the other one is because it depletes your body of what it needs to maintain bone density. These are the sort of things I’d like to have known a long time ago, but I’m honestly not sure what would have been any different. They might have tried a different medication or five and the end results could have been identical.

I have stopped taking the drug and am experiencing some rebound symptoms but I suspected this would happen as my body adjusts. It’s unpleasant but not “organ failure” unpleasant.

The inevitable failure and subsequent removal of my gallbladder next week may have been as a result of this medication but only in a roundabout way. The medicine itself didn’t cause the failure, but the additional stress on the adjacent organs might have contributed. This is another thing I have no way of knowing for sure. I am glad that after years of this useless organ failing to do its job it is being removed.

I will no longer need to live in fear that what I eat may cripple me for days at a time or actually threaten my life. It’s no way to live.

It’s April 20 and we all know what that means…

Alright to some of us it is just another Thursday. Of all the roads I have gone down, for some reason, that’s never been one of them. I think I just know myself well enough to know that it isn’t my style. It’s been a near constant presence in my life since I can remember, but it’s way less taboo than it used to be. Because the prohibition never should have existed in the first place.

One sect of Republicans got a hard-on for this never-ending, losing battle against drugs and the rest is history. Mistakes were made on both sides, but the same party that ended slavery sure didn’t have a problem imprisoning a disproportionately darker shade of humanity when it comes to petty drug offenses. It’s hard for anyone to say the drug affects everyone equally with a straight face because it’s obviously bullshit. Not for nothing, but it isn’t a drug, it’s a plant that happens to be psychoactive.

Dad would have made at least a couple jokes about the national holiday today and was an enthusiastic participant every year, what with his being a daily consumer and all. It was always a part of his routine and it was more benefit than harm, though I confess my evidence is purely subjective. It relaxed him but it wasn’t strong enough to take away the stress enough to keep him alive. I’m not sure anything could have done that.

My brother would have spent the entire day bright-tailed and bushy-eyed, but this was every day for him. He’d have just been more loud about it on this date.

Meanwhile, many of us that are still here wonder why such a ridiculous, archaic law still exists on a national scale. Somehow alcohol remains legal, abundant, and perhaps unsurprisingly, profitable, and it is verifiable poison.

Leave it to us to know what will kill us best and make it a god.