how green is my desert

Does this look like the desert to you?

This is kind of a composite photo of where I live...sticking my trailer among the roses and behind the cemetery sign that will one day mark the entrance to this place, The Landlord's trailer park.

This does not look like the desert and therein lies my problem. Well, not a problem really but why I don't feel that this is my home. It's not deserty enough although I have to admit that when I went to Tucson today--where it was 103 degrees--I was glad to come here where it was only 90 degrees. And green.

gay for rachel maddow

Okay, so count me in. I've been a fan of hers since I heard her on Air America while living in Portland. I knew...just knew...that she would be getting her own show on MSNBC-TV because she was filling in for Keith Olbermann just a little too much.

If you don't know Rachel, check out these links:

First, a write-up about her in salon.com

which led me to this article in The Nation

and then finally a link to her web site.


Yeah, I've had a thing for Rachel Maddow for like four years. Hopefully you've had--or will have--a thing for her too.

Plus, how can I not love a woman who's "obsessed with ...librarians and cocktail mixology; she once said that she'd like to 'professionally bully people about what they drink'." Yeah, she's my kind of girl.

the bugs of summer

So the doctor at the clinic looked at my bites and said she thought they were ant bites. "Shit," I said, "that means there must be ants in my bed but I haven't seen any." She said they were probably the little tiny ones. She offered to give me a shot to relieve the itching. I asked her if it would make me drowsy, like the Benadryl I had taken the day before, and she said it would so I turned it down. I needed to work and couldn't afford to spend another day comatose.

"What about the blisters in my mouth?" She said they looked like cold sores. "I've never had those in my life," I said. I thought, that can't be right, that all of a sudden at this age I would start getting cold sores. I looked cold sores up on the Internets and most of the stuff I found said that cold sores are on the outside of the mouth; on the inside they are probably canker sores. I don't know, I still think that I might have transferred some bug venom to my mouth but whatever.

Nothing makes it difficult to fall asleep like the thought that there are bugs in your bed.

Anyway, I've been suffering with the bites and the blisters. Not much I can do about them. Then yesterday I found a dead spider in my bed and I figured he was the culprit. I've been bitten by those little fire ants as I sit outside and their bites hurt like hell. I'm sure I would've felt it if they were dining on me while I slept.

Of course, now we're experiencing monsoon plague number four: mosquitoes. Which means that I have a whole new crop of bites. And not only that but yesterday morning I killed a black widow spider who was crawling up the side of my trailer.

Aw shit, I think the doc may have been right about the fire ants. My bites look like the ones on google or flicker images. Great. I guess I'll change my sheets for the third time this week...Man, can I obsess about this stuff or what?

too young for medicare, too wealthy for health care

I make too much money to qualify for Arizona's health insurance program, AHCCCS, pronounced Access. The nice eligibility worker put my information into the computer: Do I have a home? No. Do I have any CD's? No. Money market accounts? No. Pension plans? No. Vehicle? Yes. Value? $5,000 if I'm lucky. Based on my last 4 weeks earnings, she estimated my annual income to be $13,000 and that's before taxes. And so I was disqualified.

Let's assume that I won't have to pay income taxes on that piddly little salary but I will have to pay 15% social security tax (I'm a subcontractor) so that brings my yearly income down to $11,050. Divide that by 12 and my monthly pay is $921.

I'm lucky. I pay so little in rent that I can live pretty good on $921 although road trips, book buying and fine dining are kind of out the picture. But for others...

What is the average rent for an apartment or house in Arizona? Let's say it's $500. That leaves $421 for phone, utilities, gas, car insurance, food, health care, clothes, toilet paper. When the eligibility worker asked about utilities I said, "What about DSL?" "Internet service doesn't count," she said. "But I need that for work." She was sorry but the state is kinda behind the times that way.

So those of you who don't think we need some kind of universal health care, well, just think what might happen if someday you should find yourself without a job, or with a job that doesn't provide health insurance. And let's say you make a lot more than $11,050 a year but how much is private insurance going to cost you?

None of this is new but with the elections coming up, I would hope that this would be an important issue for people to consider. But, no, most people will be swayed more by someone's "celebrity" than their politics, if you believe McCain. Or you won't want to vote for a Muslim, if you believe Internet lies. Or you would never vote for a black man in spite of the fact that his economic package, if nothing else, will get this country back on track.

So, hey, go ahead with your meme thinking and pray to god that you keep your job and your health insurance. Fuck the rest.

ewww eeeek aaargh

God, could someone just take me out into the desert and shoot me? Put an end to my misery? Jesus Christ.

What, you ask, is causing this drama? Fucking bug bites. Or spider bites. That's what.

I forgot how buggy monsoon season is. These creatures that are biting me, they're freaking me out. I don't think they're mosquitoes because I think I'd hear them or see them or feel them sting. It's something in my bed, I think. Something that likes my face, my neck, my eyes. I look like a fucking meth addict with my eyes swollen shut and sores all over my face. And not only that but I have blisters in the underside of my upper lip like from the venom or something. It looks like I've had a bad collagen injection.

And not only do the bites itch like a mother but they ooze... 'nuff said.

The clinic here can't get me in till next week. So I have an appointment for 8 in the morning at the clinic in another little town somewhere. There I'll sign up for Arizona's health plan which will be a good thing beings as I've been without health insurance for almost four years.

Anyway, I can't tell you how many meth addicts I've met who blame their oozing sores on spider bites. I'm not kidding--do an Internets search on spider bites and meth sites will show up. So right here and now I'm swearing on a bible, I am not a meth addict. But the next time a tweaker shows me a spider bite, real or not, I'm going to have a little more sympathy.

Good God, will I ever post another post?

I can't get the words to come forth.
I can't sit down and read a book.
I need to clean the bathroom.
I should mop the floors.

Here's what I do. I type for an hour, lie down for 15 minutes, type for another hour, rest for 15 minutes... All day, nearly every day. Fuck, at this rate it takes me 5 hours to bill for 4, not to mention a break for lunch and maybe a walk to the convenience store for something convenient.

After three years of not working, I can't figure out how to get back in the swing of things. I must say, I'm not spending any money because I rarely leave the trailer. Of course, I'm not making much money because my body can't handle all this typing. My right hand goes numb as does the big toe on my right foot. Maybe I have gout. Or a pinched nerve. Or a blocked artery. Diabetes. An impending stroke.

Enough. I'm going over to The Landlord's to drink vodka and watch "Annie Hall".

Will I click the "publish post" button on this entry? We shall see. First I need a title.