Tag Archives: United States

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Je ne parle plus anglais.

This is me kissing the Blarney Stone. When one kisses it they are given the “gift of gab.” Yeah, until recently, I had that. Oh, and that’s the crasher squirrel with me.

My recent brain issue has caused me a lot of trouble communicating.  As this is not only my favorite thing to do — communicate I mean, I write, I talk (a lot), I read — this has been troubling.  Along with the memory problems, nothing has scared me more than waking up unable to talk or write.

I feel like one of the patients on that show, Mystery Diagnosis.  People on that show have baffling symptoms that force them to go to multiple doctors before, sometime decades after the first symptom appeared, they are cured.  Usually really bad symptoms are prefaced with “Nothing could have prepared them for what happened next…”  My life has felt a lot like that lately.  First, it was seizures, then the realization they had been happening longer than I had thought and may be the cause of other problems (memory, speaking, writing), then I started having massive headaches that started in the morning (when I was asleep) and gradually faded during the day, then it was visual problems (only my left eye but it can be nearly impossible to see out of it when it is bad) … Every day was starting to make me worry about what troubling new thing would happen next.

I don’t know if it is a symptom of whatever is going wrong in my brain or the stress of this all but nothing could have prepared me for what happened the other day.  (You don’t know this because you cannot see me but I mean that in a little tongue in cheek kind of way, that’s what people in comedy call a ‘call back.’)

My cat — Little Cheddar Jameson — is a stressed out feline.  He gets very upset with the mirrors or other reflective surfaces in my apartment and has taken to waking me up between three and six in the morning fighting with one in my bedroom.  I have taken to responding by yelling at him.  The other day was no different only when I yelled at him to stop I yelled, “Tu es de la merde!  Tais-toi!  Je doit dormir!”  This didn’t seem odd until I went to fall back asleep and all of my thoughts were in French and I could not think of any English words.  Not a single one.

Now, one of my next thoughts was that I really need to work on my French vocabulary because it has been a while and mine is pretty limited right now.  I resolved to practice it more.  And I will.

Eventually, I fell back asleep and when I woke up, things were back to normal but that was very, very strange.  So now, if you run into me on the street and I am either very quiet or speak only in French, you know why.

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My candidate lost the election, I am taking my ball and going HOME!

Getup Get God

Getup Get God (Photo credit: prettywar-stl)

By now you probably know that people in every state in the country have started petitions to secede from the United States.  First of all, good luck with that.  How often has that worked before?  Oh, right, never.

Secondly, you might want to think a bit before you go ahead and start your own country.  Personally, I like having the US military there to protect me.  Maybe you do, too but whereas I will still have it, you would not.  Think your former country is going to bail you out when some big bad comes knocking on your door?  Think again.

And while we’re at it, I like being able to travel the world with full protection of the US government behind me.  Get stuck in some foreign country and need help, yeah, there’s an embassy not too far away.  Not so much for the newly created Republic of Alabama.

Oh, and to senior citizens in states looking to leave, hope you don’t need that Medicare or Social Security because you won’t be taking it with you.  And Florida, that’s going to impact a lot of your residents.  Texas, too but you’ll be smarting from all the people you have lured away from their states racing home to keep their US citizenship.  Funny, your governor doesn’t seem all that excited about the possibility of giving up all that federal aid you get.

Aside from all of that, this is really absurd.  Part of the deal of our kind of government remains that not everyone will be happy with the outcome of every election.  In some ways, that means we are doing something right. You know where nearly 100 percent of people vote for one candidate over the other?  Places like North Korea.

Personally, I have lived through many elections where I wasn’t happy. I had threatened to move to Canada if George W. Bush was elected but I didn’t go anywhere.  After working on the Gore campaign, I was pretty bitter about the outcome of that race but I didn’t think the state I lived in (New York) should become the nation of New York.  But I wasn’t the whiny bitch you people seem to be.  Seriously, this stuff annoys the crap out of me.

I actually agree with this:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

This, however, is not one of those times.

 

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Do you listen to your doctors?

Does Anyone Ever Listen?

Does Anyone Ever Listen? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have a problem with authority figures in general and that ends up applying to the medical professionals I see.  Now, when I was considering going into medicine, I found two schools of thought — paternal and fraternal.  The former kind of physician expects patients to just follow advice without asking any questions.  The latter seeks to work with patients to determine the best course of  action for them.  I do not respond well to the former and only deal moderately well, on a good day, with the latter.

That got me thinking, I cannot be the only person who gets prickly when people expect me to do things that don’t make sense to me.   And no, I know I didn’t go to medical school but I am not an idiot.  If you cannot take the time to explain to me why I need to do something, well, I won’t feel the need to do it.

How about you?

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Because laughter is truly the best medicine…

Map of the New York City Subway Español: Plano...

 

I am getting back on stage!

 

This week, I will be all about NYC.  The biggest show will be at the Eastville Comedy Club in New York City on Wednesday, October 24 at 8:30 pm.  The tickets are free but reservations are required.  Email reservations@eastvillecomedy.com.  Please let me know if you can make it so I can get a sense of how many people I have coming.

 

If you are in Washington, DC, I will put my upcoming schedule up as soon as it is ready.

 

Hope to see you out somewhere!

 

 

 

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More things that make me want to whip out a can of pepper spray.

Just when I thought I could not be any more of a grammar freak, I found I have a new pet peeve.

As if I didn’t already have enough. (Seriously, I am more of a collection of pet peeves and idiosyncrasies than a fully formed person.)

Now, it seems that my hatred for inappropriate apostrophe usage is being challenged for my personal biggest peeve by upstart hatred for random capitalization.  Do people just not understand the difference between a capital and lowercase letters?  I can forgive a child but when I see veteran newspeople doing this (a local NBC reporter had a handmade sign at Dupont Circle that had all sorts of randomness) makes me CRAZY.  And if you know me, you know the LAST thing I need in my life is that.  Yes, I can do crazy all on my own.

Anyone here have any new or really interesting pet peeves?