BEDA Day 1: Well hello!

Hello! Today marks the first day of Blog-Every-Day-In-April. Since I am lousy at introductions, I figured I would give you little "Katie tidbits" in the form of one of those fancy poems, that I cannot for the life of me think what it's called. You'll understand:

BEDA: Introduced to me by Becky, one of the most creative people I have ever known!

Lasers: My livelihood. These are what I use in my research, which will someday give me a PhD?

Olives: I prefer green. The best I've ever had were in Italy, with some sort of awesome marinade. 

Green: My favorite color. (Which is not why I like green olives better than black; they just taste better.)

Evan's canal osteotomy: One of the procedures I recently had on my foot. Hence the surgery posts.

Voracious appetite: Man I love food!

Elizabeth: My middle name.

Rick-rolling: I still think it's funny.

Your mom: I still think it's an appropriate response to insults.

Dog: Her name is Tia. She is very grumpy that I can't walk or play with her for awhile. 

A blue rubber used-to-be-squeaky bone: Tia's "baby," and her very very favorite toy.

Yep, I dye my hair: Right now it's dark brown. I like it.

Industrial: I've had it for a year. I love it. I'm enjoying it while I can, before I have to look professional.

Nachos: A perfectly acceptable meal.

Alice in Chains: My favorite band, ever. I have mentioned them an embarrassing number of times.

Perrier: Overpriced, but I'm a fan. I just happen to like fizzy water... 

Running: I did for about 9 months before I broke. My goal is to start again in about 5 or 6 months.

Iced Tea (as opposed to Ice-T): Unsweetened. Definitely. Unless it's Jeremiah Weed Sweet Tea Vodka. Mmm, mmm.

Lut'ran: Oh sure, you bet. Hotdish and red Jello.

Surgery Post III: Things No One Told Me

Much like "Oh by the way, the reason you have a sore throat is because we shoved a breathing tube down your throat but we didn't want to tell you beforehand (see previous post)," there were definitely a few things that I wasn't expecting, because simply put, no one bothered telling me. Some are more serious than others.

• They put the nerve block in while you're still awake. The nerve block is a wonderful invention...I believe it's the same technology as an epidural, only instead of going in the spine, it went in my thigh to make just about my entire calf and foot totally numb so that when I got out of surgery, I would have next to no pain at all. I assumed this would be done while I was already unconscious. Nope! While awake. I have lots more to say about this, but that will be part of a later post.
• Peeing is REALLY hard. They had me use the bed pan for the first night. Part of it is, I'm sure, psychological...I've been actively, purposefully, NOT peeing in my bed for 23-odd years. But that aside, something about the anesthesia or the morphine simply makes it really, physically, difficult to pee. I have never had to concentrate so hard to pee before. And then, of course, as soon as my body 'remembered' how to go, I had to go every hour or two all night long. But even though I 'had to,' it was hard. 
• My toes look like plastic. So says my husband. My TOES are swollen. I had my plaster/gauze/Ace bandage splint replaced today with a sweet green cast, so I finally got to see my foot. There is so much swelling, but apparently it's perfectly normal. For some reason, I was not expecting this much.
• Oh, and, by the way, YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO GIVE YOURSELF A SHOT EVERY DAY FOR THE NEXT 2 WEEKS. It's so I don't get a blood clot. That would be bad. I was wondering why I had gotten a packet in the mail, "How to Self-Inject," but since no one had cared to tell me, I didn't think much of it. I have lots more to say about this, too.

Surgery Post II: Pleasant Surprises

I had my appendix out when I was 10. While that wasn't exactly the highlight of my childhood, I think that having that experience made me a little less apprehensive about having this surgery. For example, I remembered that even if you were lucky enough to sleep well, nurses still came in to wake you every every 4 hours to check your vitals. I also wasn't surprised when I didn't keep down Jello and water. Thankfully though, there were a few things that I was either expecting to be awesome and WAS, or that I was dreading and it wasn't a big deal!

• The IV. The IV before went in my hand, but they put it in after I was out from the gas. All I know is that while it was in, my wrist hurt really bad and they had to put a splint on, rendering my hand useless. I was not looking forward to it. Well, this time around they put it in my arm, a couple inches below the wrist. Putting it in wasn't horrible, and I could actually use my hand without pain. One of the most painful parts of my previous trip to the hospital was when they took the IV out...this time, no problem. The area is still a little tender/bruised...but I'll take it.
• Anesthesia. Anesthesia, for me, is a trip. It's so much fun. When I was 10, they just gave me the gas, but I was looking forward to it from when I had my wisdom teeth out. It did not disappoint! You know on the edges of fluorescent lights, there are sometimes little round, plastic 'caps'? I really don't know how to explain them any better. Regardless, I definitely saw them fall. I asked the kind nurses/surgical staff if that was actually happening. "No Katie, that's just the anesthesia. The room will get kind of spinny." I looked around..."Nope, none of the rest of the room is spinning. Are you sure they're not actually falling?" Out.
• The Sore Throat. Coming out of appendix surgery, I was not surprised that my abdomen was sore. What DID surprise me was the super-duper sore throat. I was informed that it was because of the breathing tube that they used during surgery, that they didn't tell me about because if I knew about it, I would resist it (not totally sure how that would work considering I was passed out...). So I expected it this time. And I'm pretty sure they mentioned something about a breathing tube, so I was fully expecting to have a sore throat and eat lots of popsicles. Surprise, surprise...no sore throat! Huzzah!
• The Shot. I couldn't tell you what it was for, but following the appendectomy they gave me the most painful shot I've ever had in my life. Right in my thigh. I was very very very happy that that was not repeated.
• The Blowy Thingy. I think it was to ensure that you got all the anesthesia out of your lungs. I remember having to periodically blow...or actually no, I think I had to inhale...from this weird contraption. Lung capacity or something? The air tasted bad through all the tubes and made me cough. Following abdominal surgery, this was not fun. I realize that following foot surgery, it should not be a big deal. But I still didn't want to do it. Imagine my panic when my Parkland College nursing student, Tammi, asked if I had that yet. Apparently it's on every surgery patient's orders...but no one actually does it. Which is totally cool with me. I was getting all the oxygen I needed, and that's all that mattered to me.

Surgery Post I: A Call to Arms

I had foot surgery last week. I was originally going to write one big long post about it, but I tend to get bored writing them and I doubt anyone would actually want to read it. So I've decided to parse them out into several smaller posts. This way I'm more likely to finish them, and I can say 'look how productive I was today! I wrote a bunch of blog posts!'

So in this bite-sized edition, I just wanted to say THANK YOU to the million nurses and techs who made my life so much easier. I should probably send them a card.

Jaymie, Day Sam, Night Sam, Tomas, Tara, and Stella. There were probably others, but these are the people I remember the best. Jaymie was my day-time nurse. If life was Scrubs, she'd basically be a white Carla, a kind of no-nonsense-yet-very-caring nurse in charge. Sam was her tech. She was very sweet. I'm really, really thankful for Tomas, Tara, and Stella. Tomas was my first night-time nurse. Tara was my night-time tech, and Stella was Tomas' assistant. The first night was the worst. Tara and Stella cleaned me up when I threw up berry Jello and water, and did so not only without complaint, but also without making me feel like I was putting them out or making them do anything gross. Same with bed pans. Originally, Tomas just had the ladies help me with the bed pans, but at one point, all the ladies were on break, so he helped me out (with my permission). He was so incredibly professional and nice and I am so grateful. I don't know what they get paid, but it is NOT enough. These people are saints.

Things (I love and hate Thursday, Friday night edition)

Becky's latest post reminded me about Things I Love Thursday, which I can't say I often remembered to do during Blog Every Day in April (come on Katie, there were only 4 that you had to remember), but I thought oh hey, what the heck, maybe it's time for another.

But today was not a big 'love' day for me. It just wasn't. And so I present two lists.

Things I Hate, specifically right now.

• Skinny people without much luggage who sit on the outside seat on the bus. Riding on the bus is a necessity in this town. There is no way I'm paying the minimum $400 a semester to pay to park, and I'm just a little too far to walk regularly (and just not in good enough shape to bike to work, and right now it's too slippery to do so anyway). So I take the bus. Along with a million other people. A million other people who should have learned by now basic etiquette of bus riding. Our buses, like many city buses, have 8 or so rows of seats, two each on either side of the bus, with a center aisle in between. If the bus is close to empty, as my one bus often is, then feel free to splay yourself out in a full two seats. But as soon as you see that oh, there aren't any two-seaters left, YOU NEED TO PACK YOURSELF UP. I feel like this is super obvious, but apparently it isn't. On my second, busier bus today, the girl sitting in front of me was sitting on the aisle seat, making it impossible for someone else to sit down in the second seat. There are three, and only three, times when this is acceptable: 1) You are morbidly obese. It's irritating when you realize that you can't sit down because someone is taking up two seats, but it's forgivable. 2) You have just a crap-ton of stuff. I mean more than a backpack and a purse. I mean a backpack, a purse, three shopping bags, and a box of exams. This is also a forgivable offense. It happens. 3) The inside seat is wet or covered in something unsavory. I don't want to sit on that either. But any other time...get it together. Few things in life irk me more than a skinny person without too much stuff sitting in the aisle seat on a crowded bus. People have to stand. There is no excuse. Don't like crowds? Me neither. Have some serious 'personal bubble' issues? Get over it, or don't ride the bus.

• Grad School. I don't wanna talk about it. 'Nuff said.

• 'Open-minded,' 'liberals,' who bash Christians and Christianity as a whole. I just get so irritated and sad when people who supposedly are super open-minded and liberal like to say that it's impossible for Christians to be open-minded or liberal. As a liberal Christian, I can safely tell you...we do actually exist. There are Christians who will not tell you that you or anyone else will go to Hell. There are Christians who believe that two people, regardless of sex, should be able to be both legally and religiously married. Did anyone see that picture of the Christians in Egypt forming a protective 'wall' around the Muslims in Egypt to protect them while they were praying? Christians exist who believe that everyone has a right to practice their own religious practices. What got me going about this right now? Stay tuned for Things I Love, as there is a caveat...

• How I'm also expected as a liberal to smoke pot. Yeah, this is another one of those things. I've been noticing a lot lately that one of the things that liberals are supposed to find funny is pot use. All a comedian has to do is go 'so I was high' and the crowd goes nuts. I don't think it's funny. I think it smells bad, and I have other reasons for not wanting to partake. I do happen to think that it should be legalized...but not so I can go get high. More so we can tax the crap out of it, regulate it, and cut down on some of the drug wars going on. But I've never smoked it, and I have no interest in doing so, and I hate that as a liberal I feel like I have to explain that.

Ok. 'Nuff of that. 

Things I Love

• Fetch with Tia. Tia has this weird, really cute, way of playing. Sometimes it's a bit naughty; she really likes mouthing and grabbing, but my favorite are our games of fetch with her 'baby.' Her 'baby' is a blue rubber bone. She used to be kind of weird about playing with it, and she used to just carry it around. Now though, she's decided that it's the BEST TOY. Fetch with her baby is more like a combination game of fetch and tug. I throw the baby, she chases after it, brings it back, smooshes it into my legs, I grab it, we tug, she play-growls, half the time I get it, half the time I let her keep it. When she keeps it, she'll usually try to get me to tug it again. She gets up on her hind legs, she 'crawls' up me to get it (adorable in the winter, will get horrifying in the muddy spring)...I love it. 

• Two Bands: Mad Season and Tyr. Mad Season I've talked about before. It's a 'grunge supergroup,' comprised of Layne Staley and some other guys. From Pearl Jam maybe? Anyway, I got their CD from the library and have listened to it almost every day since. It. Is. Awesome. I'll do a bigger post on it another time. Tyr is a Viking Metal band that hails from the Faroe Islands. I don't have any of their albums, nor are they on iTunes, but they are on YouTube so I can listen to them at work. By far, their best songs are those that are in Faroese, but they tend to mostly be winners. My only beef with them is that they are decidedly anti-religion. Not Satanic or anything like that, but the lead singer likes to say at the end of his interviews 'and remember, religion is bullshit.' Apparently they're really upset about the Christianization of the Faroe Islands 999 years ago (or something), and quite a few of their songs involve Norse and neo-pagan mythos. Some of their music videos have them bashing crosses and stuff...supposedly it's because, you know, that's what Vikings did?...but I just wish that for once, I could find some good metal that doesn't have a problem with Christianity. Wishful thinking, I suppose.

• Tjett. He puts up with me. And he's super hotttt stuff :)

• Mushrooms. We made some chicken and mushroom marsala earlier this week. Um, delicious. It was my first time making it, and I was very proud of myself. It turned out really good, minus the sauce being very very liquidy. Is it supposed to be? I don't even know. But while making it, I had to taste the mushrooms to see if they were tender...ooooooh, mushrooms cooked in butter.....and the only thing better than mushrooms cooked in butter? Mushrooms cooked in butter THEN SOAKED IN WINE.

No day like a snow day

Pretty much the entire town is closed. They even canceled classes at the University. Frankly, we didn't really get very much snow from Winter Storm Abernathy, but we did a serious amount of ice pellets and graupel (a word I learned yesterday), so the plows weren't able to get out until this morning. The buses just resumed, but my route kind of skips me. I'd have to trudge only a few blocks, but it's a few blocks of unplowed ice and snow. And wind. Tjett can't get out of the driveway (the graupel makes it more like sand than snow), so I've made the executive decision to stay home for a bit.

A 'Skullet' is not a good look for anyone.

This was actually written back in late July/early August. I figured I was long past a blog post, and I felt bad I never finished this, because I thought it was interesting. Enjoy.

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to attend Central Illinois Metalfest with my brother, Nick, and his friend, Vaden. Not to be confused with his dog, Vader, who also visited. It turned out to be less confusing than it sounds.

Since I'm not really 'into' Metal, and truth be told I can't pick out a good band from a crappy band, I spent most of the time trying to figure out what was going on. These shows are really fun...even if you're not a huge fan of the music, live, it's a great time. I think I had more fun this year than last, and I was totally sober this year (I suppose some of that could be WHY it was more fun...I didn't puke in the bathroom, I didn't fall asleep, and I didn't go from drunk to hungover all in one night). This is not a compendium of Metal truths, nor is it to be taken as such. They are simply a neophyte's observations. And if someone reading wants to correct me...please do.

Music
From what I gathered, there are (at least) two types of Metal: Death Metal (Old School Fucking Death Metal) and Grindcore. CIM's website also advertised 'Black Metal,' but I couldn't tell you what that is. Grindcore seems to be popular, especially among the newer bands and younger fans. Nick prefers Death Metal to Grindcore. Grindcore is almost purely technical, while Death Metal has more cool guitar riffs. I think I also prefer Death Metal. For those of you totally unversed, the vocals are nearly exclusively growls, the almost-incomprehensible 'Cookie Monster' voice. The vocalists (almost exclusively men, but there are female vocalists, who, according to my brother are almost always 'gimmicks') generally either use a low growl, or a higher-pitched rasp, or sometimes a combination of the two. Occasionally there's 'harmony' between a couple of vocalists, that's pretty cool actually.

Most of the bands have 4 or 5 members: a drummer, a bassist, and a guitarist or two and a vocalist or two, and often the vocalists are also guitarists. Though not always. And from what I can tell there's no feeling that those bands who have vocalists who don't play anything are any less talented. However, a handful of bands only have one member. This is not super common, but nor is it extremely rare. One of the most popular sets of the night was a one-man band called Putrid Pile (more on names later). He had a pre-recorded drum track, and then he played the guitar and did vocals. In one song he had his friend do vocals with him, but otherwise it was just him. And, again, I didn't get the impression that he was any less legitimate than any of the other bands.

Appearance
Standard apparel is the same for both the fans and the band members. For men, most common is jeans or shorts, any color (though dark washes and camo tend to be favorites) and black band t-shirts. Aside from those working the show, I think I saw one guy wearing a red t-shirt (though I'm pretty sure it may have also been a band shirt), and Vaden wore a navy band shirt. A couple of guys had just plain black t-shirts, and one guy had a 'Night of the Living Dead' black shirt. Hair is generally either long or shaved, and there's usually some amount of facial hair, most popularly in a grown-out goatee. The vocalist for Deceased (my favorite of the night; I even considered buying a shirt and/or CD from them) was a bit older, and probably at one point had an awesome head of hair. Unfortunately, he now has a huge bald spot. And very long hair. Not a good look. Putrid Pile, by comparison, was very clean-cut: he actually reminded me of Ben Lombardi from college, who is now, I believe, a 3rd-grade teacher.  It was a touch eerie.

The few women in attendance wore more varied things. I saw one or two girls much in the same dress as the men, though a few had somehow altered their band t-shirts to be tube tops over tank tops. I also saw a couple girls in very Hot-Topic-y dress, with fishnets and skulls and zippers. And then I saw some girls in much more 'club' attire, and they looked a bit out of place. Very cute, and very out of place.

Tattoos are widely popular. Piercings aren't prevalent, but they're not uncommon. And then usually they're just ear piercings.

Oh, and contrary to the Death Metal episode of Bones (Mayhem on a Cross, which happens to be on tonight), no one was wearing any kind of makeup. I mean the girls were wearing makeup, but no black-and-white stage makeup, or fake blood or anything, and I don't think any of the guys were wearing eyeliner. At all. That actually would have probably been considered a bit gay. More on that later, too.

Band Names
Band names are...well, they're creative. Here's a sampling:

Coathanger Abortion
Embryonic Devourment
Carnal Decay
Lecherous Nocturne
Incantation
Rottenness
Sadichist (whose guitarist is formerly of Gorgasm)
Putrid Pile, as mentioned
Deceased
Malevolent Creation

Typical names tend to have some element of death or decay, or even though I don't think many are actual theistic Satanists, some kind of demonic or at least anti-Christian connotation. I think that in my spare time, I'm going to come up with band names. How about Crucified Fetus? Or Necrotized Stab Wound?

Band t-shirts also have a definite 'look.' Similar fonts: spiky, often hard to read. Nick bought an 'Incantation' shirt, and I could have sworn at first that it said 'Incantatron.' Huge, colorful graphics that depict decaying bodies, demons, or bastardized Christian symbols. Many are actually quite beautiful, in their own kind of disturbing way.

Political and Religious Beliefs
Though I imagine not everyone shares these beliefs, based on conversations with my brother and Vaden,  and some shirts I saw, it seems pretty standard. Unfortunately, it's a fairly racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic culture. I'm assuming they're mostly libertarian, "conservative" but no neo-con, Christian, 'family-first' attitude. Quite the opposite, actually. As I mentioned before, I don't think too many of them are actual theistic Satanists--it's more of a, 'we all think Christianity is stupid and horrible and Satanic imagery is the most opposite of Christianity than we can think of.'

________

Here is where I stopped writing, for whatever reason. Probably because it was getting long, most likely because Tia was being bratty. Anyway, I think one big point I was going to make is that even if I could REALLY get into the music, I could not be REALLY a part of the culture, especially due to the last point.