I will only do this once...

This is my blog therefore I am able to speak whatever the crap ass I want to speak about. In 2003 I about died twice in 2 weeks. We'll just brush right on past my first experience with death because it's not as public as my second experience is. Here is my public service announcment to get your asses checked and vaccinated for Menningitis. I had neisseria meningitis, it attacked my healthy red blood cells. It is theraputic for me to go through exactly what led up to my diagnosis..sad thing is, at the same time I was going through this, in the span of four months, two other classmates from grades below me in my High School passed away from this and another girl from a neighboring school, passed away as well. I was the only "lucky" one in the string.

It started with a fever. I had a new boyfriend who was staying the night with me when I was in college. I woke up shivering, took my temperature and it was 100. I cuddled up next to him to get warm and he did the best he could to keep me warm. 20 minutes later my teeth were clattering and I was so frigid so I took it again..104. My mind was saying "NOT RIGHT" and he just held me. I wasn't getting better. We decided that night, middle of the night with classes in the morning, to go with my gut and get me into the ER for a checkup. My only life saver here..was my near death experience two weeks prior. I was still recovering from that. Which is the only reason that the hospital even took my blood in the first place. I remember them telling me "It's just the flu, go home, sleep it off, you'll be better in a few days." But then after giving them the history of my previous experienc 2 weeks before, they made the decision to take some blood samples to make sure I didnt have an infection. THAT RIGHT THERE WAS MY LIFE SAVER. Had I NOT had that, I wouldn't be here today.

Five days later, I wasn't getting better. My fever was down to 100, I was weak, but I was able to get around and what not. I noticed it was getting harder for me to breathe but figured it was the ending of my battle to recovery. My roomates and I were living like any other day. My boyfriend was coming over, taking care of me, staying over. It hurt to breathe and I was getting red spots all over my body, which the hospital said was just a viral rash.

The phone rang the next day, I could barely breathe. The rash was getting worse. The nurse on the phone told me I had Meningitis and that I was to pick up a Rx at Hy-Vee. My thought and I said it to her "Can't I DIE from Meningitis?!" She said no..that the Rx would be fine. Fuck if I was gonna die. I called the other hospital in town and they stayed on the phone with me and then told me to go to the diagnosing hospital, they would call and tell them I was on my way. I called my parents who were 45 minutes away, told them I had Meningitis and I needed to go to the ER. My parents and my boyfriend and I all went to the ER. I told them at the check in that I was there with a diagnosis of Meningitis and they had me sit in the waiting room for an hour. While I laid there..hardly breathing.

When I finally got seen by a doctor, I remember him taking one look at me, my spots all over my body, listening to my lungs and saying "You have 6 hours to live."

I was in quarantine for 3 days. The first day I was there the space shuttle Columbia exploded. I watched the footage over and over and over. I laid in bed at the UIHC, hooked up to a million drugs and stared out my window. Here I am almost 10 years later. Newspaper articles started coming out of the other three people who died of my same disease in the coming months and I vowed to myself that I would live my life to the fullest because they weren't given the chance. Somehow, I became a survivor. Somehow, I made it through. I don't know my purpose here, I probably never will. I see Nikki Evans picture in the Milestones a lot. Her permanent senior picture is my reminder that I have a job to do here even if I don't understand why I'm here.

Vaccinate your children. Follow your gut. ASK for that blood test to make sure it isn't meningitis.

Save the flys

Back in 1988, I was playing hide and seek outside. I climbed into the garbage can. Why? Fuck if I know. It had a lid, dark, hide I will. So I'm just chilling in there..thinking about how completely and totally awesome I am that NOBODY is going to find me because who the fuck would look in a garbage can? Yeah, I win right? So I'm in there for...ok I'll say 2 minutes because nobody wants to know how long I was actually in there and that people forgot I exsisted. I hop out and look in what I was just hiding in and see these little white worm things. Awwwww white worms!! They need to be fed! So I go inside, grab the ketchup. Worms like ketchup. Spray a shit ton on the bottom of it because I figure they are hungry. Run in and tell my dad that I fed the worms in the trash can thinking that God is really going to love me for this..and the next thing I know, I'm getting a lesson on how to clean a garbage can. Like I knew they were flies.

Evil.

Flies all need to live. 

Hairy Hair

Let us chat epidemic. Epidemic..in my terms..this would be Erin logic here..an Epidemic is something that only I would freak out about and hope that my freaking out would cause mass chaos and I would be able to sit back with my Glassy Classy Brewhahaha and do just that..haha.

I have a few Epidemics in mind. Say for instance, I jump in the ocean at well, Gulf of Mexico. Some dude gets murdered in Australia. He gets thrown in to the ocean and gets nibbled on by various things of the sea and eventually shat about and displaced all over the rest of the ocean. Here I am la-de-da so hot in the ocean, showing off my awesomely amazing body and getting whistled at..and here comes one of the dead Australian molecules up my nose because I forgot to plug it. BAM! I am now part of the murder. I injested his molecule. For the sake of being disgusting, it was part of his right testicle.

Epidemic number two. Lice. EW say what?! PLAGUE!! DIRTY!! buuuuuuuuuuuugs. Yeah, gross. You have kids? Sweet. Do they like to play beauty shop and rub up with all their little girlie friends heads and be like "aaatehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe we touch heads, you're pwetty, I like ponies" and then yup, you've got an epidemic in your house. Dude, I've got girls, I swear they go around sniffing for this shit just to watch me drink uncontrollable amounts piss ass beer and cry in bed everynight begging my husband to monkey check my head.

Off point here.

SO looking at the box it dawned on me. This shit I'm putting in my kids hair is the SAME shit somebody else is rubbing on their back hair because they have body lice. Even more insane?? You can actually drench your nether regions in this stuff to get rid of crabs. Which made me wonder..I swear I know nothing about crabs because I am amazing at hiding from plague...but IF I had crabs, shave that shit. What are you?? 1970's AfroBush down there? How in the HELL..no, I don't want to know. But it would totally suck say if you were a woman with an unknowing condition of facial hair that nobody wanted to tell you about because they are way too mean to tell you you have a mustache..you go down on JoeBlow over there..bc you are doing well..Tonsil checks? I dont know..but you're there. All of a sudden you've got this epidemic on your FACE! Would you rub it on your face? What would you DO!! Would wax work? What if you like took astringent..can't really like, put olive oil on your stache and cover your face up with saran wrap..but I'm sure people do.

So anyway. My kids are now bald. They will surely deal with that problem on their own in some form or another. I don't have life insurance so they really can't kill me for money. Plus I'm way too cool to be whacked off. OK OK OK They aren't bald. But the thought crossed my mind.

Tttttttttttttime Tttttttttttravel

Not so long ago in the town that I grew up in, in a house that was close to the school that I went to on a street that I rode down everyday to get to my school was a man on one of those streets with numbers declaring his residence. This man had little to zero supporters for his idea and invention with which he was trying to build. I was most likely a wee little lassie of a mere 14..

Anyway. So I read in the paper that morning that the gestapo that is the town which I grew up in arrested this guy and took him to the insanity ward. I'm not politically correct. I was really upset by this. This dude, who in my mind, was COMPLETELY sane, was building a time machine. I was actually seriously irrate about the whole thing. He got arrested?! What the fuck. What if he really was on to something! Now we'll never know because he's locked up and drugged up.

This story has carried with me..for fear of revealing my true age..ok like 19 years..and I often wonder, if this man had succeeded in building his time machine, would he have blown up or actually traveled to where he wanted to be?

Gestapo obviously (and his family too..boo on them) thought he'd blow up everyone, including himself, and sent him away. It's too bad, because I'd have liked to borrow this time machine. If I admit that too loudly, I may get locked up.

HEY! My limb just fell off!!

I was sitting in class today, sucking on my lemon drop, wondering just how in the world I'm actually going to survive being an adult.

My teacher was talking, I don't know about what really, was having a Charlie Brown moment when all of a sudden I hear "Oh YA! You're limbs can just..POP!!! Right off! I'm serious, they do!" That was that. Seriously, that was that.

Talk about my lemon drop becoming a vomit stopper right? So then to completely and totally just day dream some more in a class where really, I should have undivided attention in since I AM basically training for my future job as a real live adult. I thought about what limb I'd like to have just fall off, on random fallingoffidness..

There's your usual, leg, toe, finger, arm, boob. What have you. Is a boob a limb? It is to me. I pick up scissors with my boob. Cut cut!! So I decided...IF I were to have any limb just fall off...how about an arm. Pick it up, all gangreney and black and shit...then totally just scare the living crap out of whomever was by me and start beating myself with it.

Lesson? You always must find the positive in every negative.

"Communism is Dead"

I do not ever shy away from talking to strangers.

Take my most recent trip to McDonald's. I will not tell you were this said McDonald's is because it chooses to remain anonymous. Just like I should have chosen to remain anonymous about the fact that I actually ate a McDonald's, got excited when my 2nd Big Mac was for the price of the recorded temperature at noon the previous day, ordered a large fry with BBQ sauce to dip it in and got 2 refills of Diet Coke. It is important to put emphasis on the DIET in Coke. I work out. It balances.

SO.

I standing there, soaking my ice cubes with diet goodness, obviously thinking of the irony when I notice this elderly lady staring at me. We'll call her "Golden." I mean, seriously, if I thought she wanted me, she was looking at me like that. Making me really paranoid. WTF was wrong with me? Yeah I got 2 Big Macs, whatcha doin there Golden?! So me, I confront her. In a nice way only the youngins' can do.

Me: I know, my pants have a lot of holes in them. I get a lot of flack from the older generations about how they used to throw their pants away when they got like that. I get it.
Golden: What? Oh honey no. I don't give a shit what you wear. I was just wondering if your husband was going to drop the tray because I thought that would be funny.
(Serious..I do not make this up..she said this to me.)
Me: I'm laughing..really. YOU are my new friend. That was about the BEST thing I've heard all day. That was awesome. Then I really, literally, hugged her.
Golden: You know what I think? To hell with what people dress like, say or do.
Then she grabs my hands and holds them..."To hell with it."
Me: You..are awesome. Thank you.

So I sit there and ask Bob if I embarrass him, he says no, I know the truth. Dude would rather me have one of those Dahmer masks on my face than have me talk to strangers and say something so absurd. But I don't care, I've got my f'n fries. Golden comes over to me before she leaves and says "Honey..you have a safe trip back home. To HELL with what people say or think. It's your life. Besides, Communism is dead."

Golden. I love you. Thanks for being in McDonald's with me.