30. May 2009 by Frank.

I am a very hard person to read.  People look at me and think I’m unfriendly and mean and foul tempered.  They are only partially correct.

What I am, is in a lot of pain.  All the time.

I’m actually quite friendly but I don’t talk much unless I know about the subject.  I’m a listener by nature.  Getting right to the heart of the matter, I’m an observer.  I usually keep my observations to myself except when I’m online.  This is where I express my opinions about what I observe.  I keep my mouth shut out in the real world.

I can see how I might seem rather mean spirited.  I call stupid stupid.  If you’re an idiot I will tell you so.  I guess that isn’t very nice but I’m past caring about good manners.  Again I do this online not out in the world.  Out there I go off and rant to myself.  I am a curmudgeon.  And a damn good one.

I do not suffer fools gladly.

My job requires I smile and be nice to people even if they are total morons.  Even if they are rude.  Even if they deliberately try to provoke me.  The rudest comment I have yet received from a customer followed 20 minutes of trying to explain what a network is to an elderly couple.  They absolutely refused to accept anything I said as factual.  Finally they asked, “Is there anyone here more intelligent than you who could explain it to us?”  That is rude to a professional level.

Just the other day a customer went out of his way to make sure I knew he was a minister.  He wanted one of those little foam microphone covers for his headset.  When I told him that we don’t carry parts like that, he very pompously informed me, “Well, I was informed that you do.”  The utter contempt in his voice was unmistakable as he stormed out the door.  He can take his ministry and shove it up his ass.

But of course I can’t respond, the customer is always right, you know.

But we don’t have that here.  I can say what I want.  So I do.  I frequently stick my foot in it and do not come up smelling of roses.  But I keep on.

Foul tempered?  Well, not exactly.  I feel anger more than I feel any other emotion.  Pain has a way of making sure of that.  Constant pain even more so.  I really don’t want to lash out at people.  So I usually internalize it and blow up when I’m alone.  I cuss myself out a lot.

I don’t smile much especially now that my teeth are half missing (damn burrito).  I’m not paralyzed or suffer any muscle distortion so when you look at me there isn’t anything to indicate that there’s something wrong.  That’s a big reason why I think people don’t believe me about the pain.  Another is simply that most people would do anything to alleviate pain instead of living with it.   But I would rather suffer than sit in a chair drooling on myself for the rest of my life; that’s what those wonderful narcotics do to me.

I think that’s why blogging appeals to me so much.  You can only go by my words, not by the impression you get of me according to my appearance.  You can decide that I’m a jerk because I write like a jerk not because I look like one.  Looks can be deceiving.

In reality I’m a tenderhearted old softie.  I cry at chick flicks.  Good grief, I even shed a few tears during STAR TREK!  I’m a hopeless romantic.  Simple little things delight me as much as complex technology.  Have you ever looked closely at the wings of a dragonfly?

When I mock the religious I do it because I lived it.  I was an absolute nutcase.  When I think back on some of the boneheaded decisions I made because I had faith, I wonder how I survived this long.  Some of these things were literally matters of life or death (like letting my wife drive when she was having problems with seizures).  As befuddled as my brain is now, it was completely missing in action during my religious days.

So I’m not cruel and heartless.  I’m not exactly a grumpy old man, either.  I will admit to being way too sarcastic.  I speak sarcasm fluently.  I’m actually friendly and approachable.  A gentleman and a scholar, if you will.  A smart and wise guy.

Don’t believe me?  Come over here and pull my finger.

Posted in wild guesses, hearing, emotion, religion, stroke | Print | 3 Comments »

25. May 2009 by Frank.

I have a new blog.  It is the long lost sister to this blog; the evil twin, so to speak.

No, really, it’s the polar opposite of this blog.  It is a blog dedicated to only the “fun” things in life such as movie and TV reviews, tech geek musings, computer game nutcasery, photographic escapades, books, music, and whatever.  All the things this blog really doesn’t need to be about.

Because I’m of two minds on these subjects.

It’s called the CASUAL EXCITEMENT BLOG.  The name gives you the main idea; low key but exciting fun activities.  All the things which violate the premise of this blog but that I still like to write about.

Religion, atheism, politics, current events, stroke and health, finances and any other heavy duty serious matters will be the substance here.  It seems out of focus to try to put a movie review or my experience with Windows 7 on a rambling, anti-religious, rant blog.

This has been my plan for some time but only recently has it started to come together.  A third phase will soon be appearing.  Extensive photo galleries will soon premiere with a tour of small towns across Southwest Michigan.  There will be seasonal journeys as well as visits with my furry and feathered friends.

I will be promoting the hell out it once it’s online.  So be forewarned, there is a lot of shameless self promotion on the way.  There’s already some movie reviews posted on the new blog.

So either click that button in the HOME box up there or use this handy link;

http://casualexcitement.com

to cruise on over to the other side of my brain where science fiction and technology trumps religion and atheism.

Please?

Posted in communication | Print | 2 Comments »

24. May 2009 by Frank.

It’s like lighting a candle with a blowtorch.

Totally unnecessary.  And cruel.

I know it’s popular to comment on current events and point out right wing religious stupidity on various blogs but even though I enjoy reading some of that I don’t enjoy writing about it.  Some of this stuff is so stupid that there’s just nothing worth saying about it.

Why in the world is there even any debate about torture?  How is it that so-called christian leaders endorse it?  Whatever happened to the moral high ground?

Why does anyone still belong to the Catholic Church?  How much child abuse has to occur before these people grow brains?  Where is the freaking outrage?  How can Catholic leaders actually try to justify this shit?

How warped do you have to be to let your child die of a treatable disease?  How could you watch your child suffer horribly and not do something more than pray?  Is perverted love really love?

Do you really think that radical Islamic terrorists are going to be moving into your neighborhood if they close Gitmo?  Do you actually believe our politicians have brains?

Why are conservatives against raising your wages but don’t want you to have tax breaks?  How is it that requiring automakers to produce cars that get better mileage is a bad thing?  How can you seriously believe that human activity doesn’t affect the climate?

Just how in the world does gay marriage have anything to do with your marriage?  What exactly is the threat?  The statistics prove abstinence only doesn’t work so why in the world don’t you approve of condoms?  How in the world can you go through a part of the world with extremely high AIDS rates and tell them not to protect themselves?

How can you believe the earth is only 6000 years old?  Do you think the Flintstones was a documentary?  Can you look at the Grand Canyon and not sense the immensity of time it took to form it?  How did science get pushed so far out of mainstream education?  When did ignorance become a virtue?

These are just some of the major news stories this year.  What happened?  There is so much ignorant foolishness on display here that it makes me fear for the future of mankind.  It isn’t just religion alone, I don’t believe that politicians that use religious themes are necessarily all that religious to begin with.  But notice how all this crap plays on fear.

Oh noes!  The world is changing!!  I can’t deal with that.

To paraphrase an old ad campaign, “This is not your father’s world.”  If you want it to be your world then it’s time to leave the foolishness behind.  Grow a pair and step up to the future.

So to answer my own title question, no it isn’t wrong to mock all this stuff.  We’ve got to, too many people take it seriously.

Posted in wild guesses, interpretation, communication, listen, signs, emotion, education, hearing, religion | Print | 3 Comments »

21. May 2009 by Frank.

It was the worst of times.  Classic.  True.

I have the feeling that I am too repetitive at times.  I’m not always aware I’m doing that when I start reminiscing or when I get in a mood.  Some things just stand out stronger than others.

Last week proved to be an excellent vacation.  I read the first part of a book.  I saw STAR TREK twice and ANGELS & DEMONS once (and actually enjoyed it).  I took my wife to an outdoor restaurant next to a marina in Saugatuck for our 28 anniversary which is actually this Saturday.  I went out walking several miles a day for 7 out of the 9 days.  I took over 2000 photos during those walks.  I also set up a dual boot install of Windows 7 on my computer on the rainy days.  I managed to do all that for less than $50 for the whole week.  I have learned to be frugal.  And have a wonderful time in the process.

Of course, things can’t be all good.  My car stopped working to the tune of $385 because the anti-theft system decided 7 years was as long as it could run before shutting down the ignition system.  The next day my daughter lost her job.  Then I got notified that my credit card company had decided to change the due date which completely demolished my budget.  And worst of all, I didn’t see a single church sign worth mocking.

All that walking and picture taking, however, revitalized me.  I’ve been severely burned out with all the medical problems, they quite literally sucked the life out of me.  I was depressed, in need of therapy depressed.  But I wouldn’t have gotten therapy if I told my doctor about it, I would have gotten a prescription for Prozac or something.  I hate that stuff, it makes me want to kill myself.

I find it amazing that chemical imbalances in your brain can make you want to murder yourself.  It’s equally amazing that something as simple as sunshine and fresh air can make you want to live.  Given the choice, I’ll take the latter.  When you start experiencing extremes like this and become aware of what is actually happening the whole concept of having a soul becomes a load of bunk.

You are the result of chemical  and electrical reactions in your brain.

The slightest bit of damage, say a lack of oxygen for a few seconds, can leave you in intense pain and alter your personality severely.  It can make you forget how to talk.  It can make you forget how to walk.  It can make you emotionless.  It can render you incapable of making decisions.  It can paralyze you or make you unable to control your body.

How could that be possible if you were truly a spirit or a soul?  If the real you is some intangible spiritual essence, how is it that simple physical effects can completely alter who you are and what you can do?  I look back on my religious days and I remember people talking about their souls and saving souls but I don’t remember anybody actually being able to explain what they meant by soul.  Or by spirit.

Being born again is common among Christians.  Somehow or other they think that means they get a nice clean shiny new soul free of the corruption of sin but that quickly becomes tarnished by that same sin it just got free of.  I never understood how that works.

I was born again of the stroke.  It erased a large part of my life but not all of it.  Some things haven’t changed, computers and science fiction come immediately to mind.  Others have; god, faith, Jesus.  If I was actually a soul or a spirit, I should still be the man I was before.  I’m not.  Not by a long shot.

I’m just a guy experiencing life one day at a time.  I’m not feeling too philosophical right now.  But I feel refreshed.  The dark, dreary Winter is over.  It’s good to be alive.

It is the best of times.

Posted in communication, emotion, religion, stroke | Print | 3 Comments »

14. May 2009 by Frank.

Alternate realities are very popular in science fiction and have been for a long time.  The current beyond superb STAR TREK depends heavily on the premise of an alternate reality to jumpstart a 40+ year old series.  J.J.Abrams also uses alternate reality to an absolutely kick ass effect in the season finale of FRINGE.  (Watch it, it will blow your socks off (both the movie and the show.))  I have no idea how many alternate reality books I’ve read or shows I’ve seen, I couldn’t name more than a handful.  But I’m sure the number is really in the hundreds.

I always wanted to be a science fiction writer.  After the stroke I thought I had the ultimate science fiction alternate reality story.  I tried to write it but I couldn’t stay focused long enough to accomplish anything.  My idea was to explain what the stroke had done to me by having my character experience a bizarre parallel world in which completely nonsensical events regularly happened to him.

I lived in a world of faith.  It was my life.  I made all my decisions based on what I believed.  Everything I did was to honor my god and glorify his name.  This was completely altered by the stroke.  My god vanished along with my health.

Pain became my new reality.  I have yet to encounter anyone who understands what constant pain does to a person.  It messes up your entire outlook on life.  People don’t understand why I don’t smile.  I am constantly being denigrated for being too negative.  The truth of the matter is that I am actually the most positive man in the world.  I have to be or else I couldn’t survive this.

I love life more than I ever did as a christian.  I enjoy every moment of being alive now when I used to hate myself for all the evil things I thought about and did.  I always believed I was such a disappointment to god.  I know better now.  I have learned to have immense joy in just simple things, like walking in the park.

It takes far too much energy and concentration for me to smile.  The right side of my face is numb.  My right eye frequently feels like it is falling out of the socket especially when I’m tired.  In the early days I used to run to the bathroom mirror to make sure my eye was still there where it should be.  I shouldn’t say run.  Running is next to impossible.  With the numbness in both my feet I feel like I’m trying to run across a trampoline if I try to run at all.

I guarantee that most normal people would curl up in a little ball, suck their thumb, and whimper for their mommies if they felt for just a few minutes what I feel in my right arm all the time day and night.

Do I want sympathy or pity?  No.  I really don’t.  This is who I am now.  This is how I am now.  I even changed my name because I am so different than what I was before.

I’ve been drinking some whiskey and watching some OUTER LIMITS on HULU.  It was an alternate reality story.

I’m really into that.

Posted in communication, religion, stroke | Print | 2 Comments »

12. May 2009 by Frank.

I realized that I have experienced some really bad shit in the name of religion over the years.

One time while teaching on the absolute necessity of forgiveness toward others after god had forgiven you, I ran into someone with a forgiveness problem that I had no answer for.  This guy’s daughter had diabetes and she died because she believed the teaching of a whackjob Pentecostal preacher and stopped taking her medicines.  She was an adult in her thirties so it wasn’t a situation where her parents could force her to do otherwise.  She kept believing until she went into a diabetic coma from which she never woke up.  The preacher kept preaching divine healing the whole time.  As far as the father was concerned the preacher murdered his daughter.

He would never forgive him.

Believing fool that I was, I kept insisting that the bible required him to forgive the preacher.  So did several other members of the class.  Goody two shoes that we were, we couldn’t see that a supposed man of god had hurt this man beyond his ability to forgive.  We kept insisting that was what Jesus would do.  After all, harboring hate in your heart just hurt you not the object of that hate.  He refused to see our point.

I can’t say I blame him.  I sometimes wonder what kind of asshole was I back then.  Talk about a lack of compassion.  It’s amazing how the so-called love of god can lead you to be a complete dick to someone because you’re trying to obey the bible.

When I was first married I dragged my new bride off to a Kenneth Copeland convention in Atlanta.  This was in the early 80’s when Atlanta was infamously proclaiming that it was the murder capital of the country.  We did not have enough money to make this trip but Copeland had specifically been teaching that this convention was so important that everyone should come anyway and have faith that god would honor their commitment and determination by miraculously providing the money.  Oh yes, I was a fool for Christ.

Our money ran out the second day there.  We could not pay for our hotel room.  God did not answer my prayers.  So there we sat in the convention center talking about what we were going to do.  Some elderly ladies overheard us and decided god wanted them to give us their offering money to help us out.  I took the envelope but didn’t open it until that night after the convention.  I was so happy, god had honored my faith after all!

There was $9 in the envelope.  Yes, that’s right, nine dollars.  The hotel wanted a whole lot more than that.  In order to pay the bill I went to a finance company (that no longer exists) and got a short term loan to pay the hotel and get us home.  I had to turn to the world for help to get home from a convention god called me to come to.  Did I curse god and die?  No, I cursed myself and Kenneth Copeland but mainly myself for not having enough faith.  I should have walked away right then but I was just getting started.

I turned away from Copeland’s teachings after that but I did not actually learn my lesson.  Several years later, we were having a financial crisis again and I happened to turn on the religious TV station when Copeland was  preaching that god wanted you to get out of debt.  How did I react?  Why, that was exactly what I needed to hear.  God must be speaking directly to me through Copeland once again!

Regular genius that I was, I, of course, decided to follow his new teachings.

Needless to say, this caused an even greater disaster for us.  I very nearly ruined our lives trying to depend on god to provide our needs.  Because I was a freaking faith giant.

I can mock religious stupidity because I lived it.

I indulged in every extreme nutjob behavior and then some.  I treated people abominably because I was convinced I was right.  I made horrendous decisions because the man of god told me god would always honor his word and my faith.  I kept on believing and actively promoting all this bullshit even though I had tons of evidence that none of it was true and none of it worked.  I’m ashamed of myself.

But I have forgiven myself now that I’m a realist.  Back then I could believe myself into a box, nowadays I can think my way out of it.

That’s a big improvement.  Learn by example.

Posted in interpretation, hearing, education, emotion, religion | Print | 2 Comments »

11. May 2009 by Frank.

I’m on vacation.

I have no money.

So I am doing what any creative geek would do in such a situation:  I’m testing Windows 7 on my computer.  It’s free for one year.  It’s still beta but who cares?

I set up a new partition on the hard drive with a program called gParted.  Then after 3 or 4 crashes managed to get Windows 7 to install.  It’s a nice dual-boot install so all my Windows XP stuff is still intact (I backed it all up as well.)  It is considerably faster than XP both starting and shutting down.  It’s running beautifully so far although the trial 7 compatible  antivirus isn’t registering as being turned on even though the program itself says it is.

So far everything I have tried has worked exceptionally well.  7 also has some great backgrounds and themes.  I may even put my malfunctioning digital TV tuner card (critical files kept disappearing under XP) back in to see if it will work with the new Media Center.  I tried running a couple of programs off the other partition.  One (Irfanview) ran flawlessly but the other (PaintShopPro) caused a weird error message.  I haven’t tried any games yet but that’s on the agenda.

I went to see STAR TREK Friday night and was in total geek nirvana.  I’ve been a Trekkie since I was 11 years old when the first episode premiered.  This new one is the best movie ever.  I absolutely loved it.  I can’t wait to see it again this week.

Weird repetitive keysssssssssssssssssstroke error in effect currently.

Such fun!

Posted in technology, communication | Print | 3 Comments »

9. May 2009 by Frank.

Mother’s Day has been heavily promoted for the last couple of weeks.  These ads have been increasingly annoying me.  What to do with your mother on mother’s day, what to buy her, where to take her to dinner.

I had a very strained relationship with my mother all my life and now she’s dead.  There’s nothing I can do with her, for her, or to her.  I’ll never see her again.  I don’t have warm fuzzy memories of favorite times I spent with her.  When I think of her all I remember is the agony she suffered for three long weeks while her pancreas tortured her to death.  All I remember is standing there at her side begging her to just stop breathing while my step-father and my sisters kept begging god to help her to hang on.  All I remember is the horror of her death.

I remember having to walk out of the waiting room on several occasions as her religious friends tried to sugarcoat the situation with their godly tripe.  He’s called her home, she’s going to a better place, there will be no more pain and suffering there, when it’s your time it’s your time, she’s in god’s hands now.  Sickening shit.

The truth of the matter is that she was in absolute agony for three weeks and essentially all they could do for her was pump her so full of so many high powered narcotics that she was out of her mind almost the whole time.  This is how a merciful loving god calls his children home?  This is the kind of death he chose for her to glorify his name?  What kind of sick bastard is this god?

I don’t know how anyone can keep believing in such a being after watching something like this happen to someone they love.

The man who was my best man at my wedding 28 years ago was also a good christian.  He died soon after from colon cancer.  It literally ate him alive from the inside out.  He suffered indescribable agony before he died.  At the end he didn’t even remotely resemble a human being, he looked like the big headed, puny bodied aliens from a number of science fiction shows and movies.  I was still playing sup-christian at the time so I used all those same comforting words to try to handle his death.

It didn’t work then, either.

But I didn’t let go of god.  Time dimmed the horror of his death and by then I had repeated the mantra enough to almost make myself believe god had a plan in all of it.  I was sure he had used it to save some of his family members and strengthen the faith of others.  How frakking warped is that?

But there’s no holiday to dredge up those memories year after year.

My mother-in-law also died horribly.  For eight long years she lay virtually comatose in bed unable to communicate or do anything for herself.  She was conscious and knew when people were in the room.  But that was it. Her lifelong religious friends gave up on her long before the eight years were ended.  So much for the love of god.

There’s not much joy around here on Mother’s Day.  My daughter is going to take my wife out tomorrow but she feels much the same way.  Her grandmothers’ deaths affected her very strongly as well.  She watched both of them die.  Neither died well.

Holidays disgust me.  I know you’re supposed to think on the good things, the good times, the positive memories.  For me, the horror is still too strong.  But celebrating these special days is so ingrained in our culture that you almost feel guilty for not meeting your obligations if you don’t participate.

Posted in emotion, religion, Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »

3. May 2009 by Frank.

An absolutely beautiful morning inspired me to take a wonderful 2 mile walk at about 8:20 AM.  I decided to drive to the little village just 3 miles down the road so I could walk around there and look at the quaint little buildings.  It’s a new goal I have, to walk around places I don’t normally walk around.  It was a great decision because weather this sweet doesn’t happen all the time; 55 and sunny.

I passed by an old school building that had been converted into a Baptist church.  Apparently they aren’t of the more modern multiple service times like the Lutheran church a half mile down the street.  That was a good thing because that meant there was no one around to hear me exclaim, “Holy Shit!” as I saw their friendly neighborhood announcement sign.

“The earth is the Lord’s.  Psalm 24:1,” read the sign.  OK, no big deal.  Standard bible quotation, common enough.  The problem and/or the shocker was the sentence underneath the verse.  The stark raving stupid is here.  Right here in my little village.  In what was once a place of education.

Brace yourself.  “Only God Can Control the Climate!” proclaims the sign.  Augh!

I frequently read articles by atheists pointing out creationist bullshit and fundamentalist denials of science.  My usual reaction is of the oh come on, they aren’t all that bad variety.  I tend to think such viewpoints are restricted to relatively small groups of whackaloons but then I see something like this and I realize that I’m wrong.  This kind of crap is everywhere.

I’m not much of a crusader for global warming but I have been through Gary, Indiana and lived in Los Angeles, California so I’ve seen up close and personal just what human created pollution can do to the atmosphere and the entire ecosystem.  I find it unbelievable that anyone in this day and age can seriously believe that human activity isn’t affecting the climate of the planet.

But at least this idiot pastor in this little village believes that only his god can have that effect.  And he’s preaching it to his sheeple as the word of god.  At least some of them will believe it, too, when he gets done.

That it’s happening in what used to be a schoolhouse just makes it that much more shameful.

Posted in interpretation, communication, listen, signs, education, hearing, religion | Print | 3 Comments »

2. May 2009 by Frank.

My recent bout with the urologist was probably the most emotionally traumatic procedure I have ever endured.  Having all those wires inserted into me with absolutely no warning or explanation was quite devastating.  I struggled mightily with my emotions for weeks afterwards.  I was supposed to buck up and take it like a man but I challenge any real man to undergo that and not be affected.

The shocking thing to me is the emotions themselves.  I haven’t felt any in the last eleven years since the stroke with the exception of anger, intense but incredibly fleeting anger.  This is a major problem for me in dealing with other people.  No one believes me when I talk about the pain and no one believes me when I talk about emotions either.

Most people have emotional responses to various stimuli throughout the day.  Happy, sad, joyful, amused, angry, furious, love, hate in various combinations and intensities are normal and were part of my life before.  But after the stroke my emotions became what I call “The I Don’t Care Syndrome.”

Other stroke survivors knew what I was talking about.  It appears to me to be a fairly common effect along with alienation.  In simplest terms everything lost its value to me.  Let me give you a simple example or two. 

I love all things Star Trek (well, except for Scott Bakula in Enterprise) and have been a huge fan since the day it premiered back in the sixties.  I can’t wait to see the new movie next weekend.  If something happens, however, that prevents me from ever seeing it I won’t care and I won’t feel a thing about it.

The same thing happened with books and music.  I was a voracious reader, 3 to 4 novels a week was normal for me.  I’ve maybe read 3 to 4 novels in the last eleven years and it doesn’t matter to me.  I have no idea when I last bought a music disc.  I love music.  But it doesn’t matter, take it away forever and I still won’t care.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still get amused occasionally.  But like the anger it is very fleeting.

The only analogy I can think of is that it’s like a thermostat.  I used to be set at 80 degrees and most of my emotional responses were in a range of +/- 10 degrees.  The stroke came along and reset me to 20 degrees with a +/- range of 5 degrees.  Part of that is just physiological, blood pressure medicine takes a motor running at 700 RPM and slows it down to 100 RPM.  That messes you up big time.  Even after 11 years it still affects me negatively.

But the ordeal with those damn wires affected me mentally and emotionally more than anything else has since the stroke.  The emotions didn’t just disappear or fade with such rapidity that I couldn’t be sure I had even felt them.  No, they stayed with me for weeks.  For me, that was incredibly bizarre.

I feel like my thermostat got turned back up to 50.  At least temporarily.  It’s wearing off now.

The same thing happened to my faith.  One of my favorite Christian phrases was, “being on fire for the Lord.”  I was.  Then I got dropped in the frigid waters of the Arctic all at once.

The only symptom of my high blood pressure was that I sweated too much too easily.  I didn’t feel sick or abnormal in any way.  I didn’t even have any idea anything was wrong with me.  But the day of the stroke my blood pressure was so high the doctors told me I should be dead already.  I didn’t feel a thing out of the ordinary that day until the stroke hit me.

They concentrated on bringing my blood pressure down, way down.  This was like running into a brick wall while doing a 100 MPH.  All that inertia has to go somewhere.  So it blasted everything I felt and cared about right out of my mind.  It left me tired and run down for eleven years.  It fried my nerves especially in my right arm.  And it left me unable to express emotional responses to much of anything.

The actual stroke event itself was the single most wonderful euphoric experience I have ever had in my life.  The cure has been far worse.

Like Daffy Duck once said, “I’m not like normal people.  Pain hurts me.”  Add an, “And I don’t care,” to the end and you’ve summed up my life.

Posted in interpretation, emotion, stroke | Print | 3 Comments »