so don't ask if you don't want to know
Personal
Personal stuff about me and my family.
What's Goin' On?
Jan 5th
Well… nuttin much.
Firstly, don’t post anything about Carol Channing. Seriously. I’ve gotten more pingbacks on that one simple snark post than anything I’ve EVER posted. Those Carol Channing fans are paying attention. Geeze.
And then, I ended up in the emergency room AGAIN Monday night. That’s 6 asthma attacks severe enough for medical assistance since last January 1st.
Then there was the continuing arguments with GirlChild. She finally got off her ass and completed the paperwork to start classes next week. Still no job but at least she made a move. She apparently whined at her brother and he told her tough shit. Grow the hell up and get a friggin job already.
I’ve applied for a new apartment back in Mesa on Gilbert Road. They haven’t let me know for sure but I think it’s a done deal. Moving February 7th if you’re not doing anything. *hint hint* And it’s a one-bedroom so NO KIDS moving with me.
I’m still perusing craigslist for RVs for sale. I wandered into a couple of dealerships and they’re all “you can’t finance anything older than 10 years and you need at least $20k down” so that’s not going to happen. If I get lucky I can find someone who will let me take over payments. Like when pigs fly.
Let’s see… what else.
I was supposed to have a meeting tonight to start a new business. I’m being pushed into it after a nonchalant conversation with a friend. I mentioned I’d like to start a business using my podcast producing skills in a different way and he jumped on it. Rounded up a couple of other people and we were supposed to hash/hack it out but he’s sick. Maybe next week. I’m actually getting pretty excited about it.
I think that’s it for now.
Happy New Year!
Dec 31st
Hopefully.
It’s been a long year, especially this last month. But I have plans for 2011.
Of course, I planned to start looking for motor homes today, but I have a sick little girl and it’s like, FREEZING outside. Arizona doesn’t really have weather so when we do it’s all extreme and shit. Yesterday people were reporting SNOW in Scottsdale and parts of Mesa. So I think I’ll wait til next week to get started.
Motor Home you ask? Well, the plan hope is to find a nice used class C motor home to live in. I want smaller space (so the kids can’t live with me anymore) and I want to travel so why not combine the two? My credit sucks and even though I’ve been excellent since my divorce I’m pretty sure my/our past history will factor in, so this whole plan might fail. But I want to try. Who knows, with the housing market sucking so bad, maybe I can find a deal somewhere. People trying to keep their house might like to dump their RV.
And then I’ll park it for the winter and travel in the summer. Sound like a plan?
And well, if that fails… I still need to get out of this apartment. It sucks so bad. If the neighbor showers or flushes his/her toilet, we have no water pressure. Fun when you’re standing fully shampooed in the shower and the water suddenly goes down to a cold trickle. Like yesterday. My lease is up February 1st.
So I’m also keeping an eye out for 1 bedroom or large studio apartments in Tempe, Chandler, or this side of Mesa. Casey wants me to move into their apartment complex. No fucking way. I’d never have a private moment again. His little friend group has taken over (4 apartments and growing) the dumpy little place and they all walk in and out of each other’s homes like it’s a commune.
A nice mother-in-law apartment would be nice. A decent converted garage apartment? Something.
I’ve been waiting all month to have the extra gas money for the driving around checking out places part and now that I have it, I also have Kira with her cough and snuffy nose all day. And then there’s partying tonight and recovering tomorrow. And then Sunday when the world shuts down. So I suppose I can wait til next week…
So Happy New Year for us all! Okay? Please?
Oh yeah, today is Max and Krystal’s 1st Anniversary. Hopefully I can meet up with them for 5 minutes or something.
Being Mean
Dec 28th
So a couple of days ago I got fed up and screamed – out of the blue – at Ginnie. Stop stinking up my house with your smoke, stop leaving the kitchen gross and get a fucking job by the end of the week or get out. Period.
I just went off like a bomb.
Big life-changing trip across America? Not so much.
Every day I mention job. Every day I ask her to do something around this house. Every day I say something about her animals eating. She’s just full of excuses. “I’m applying online” “I’m waiting until…” “I don’t have any clean clothes” “I don’t have bus money”
And yet when the boyfriend has money they eat it or smoke it. Actually I don’t have much of a problem with him as he gives me money for rent. He’s working and earning his keep. SHE is not.
Yesterday she spent the entire day out because her ex-boyfriend is in the hospital. I don’t care. Another wasted day.
So at noon today I called her out of her room and asked her what she was doing? Playing some stupid game, but she said she was applying for jobs online. Lied. I asked her if she didn’t believe I meant what I said. That’s when the no clean clothes excuse came up again.
“You should have thought of that when you went to McDonalds or bought your pot. Or the daily allotment of Tilt (or whatever her Four Loco replacement is) or ran back and forth wasting gas on nothing.”
And then I called her a prostitute. All she’s done in the last… since graduation is live off whatever boyfriend (or me) who will pay her way.
Well that effectively ended today’s screaming match. She stomped off crying and I feel like shit, but I’m sticking to my guns.
She’s fucking 20 years old. Long past time to be taking care of herself.
By Sunday she either has a job or she’s out. And I’m killing her goddam phone while I’m at it.
Weekend up and down
Dec 19th
My girlfriend CJ hosts a pot-luck breakfast and then has Santa show up for a chat with each kid and lots of pictures, but he’s not actually there for breakfast. So I went to pickup Kira yesterday morning to take her to Breakfast with Santa, as I do every year.
But of course – even after discussing it ad nauseam all week AND him shopping the night before for a new holiday outfit – everyone was sound asleep when I got there. Good thing I got there early. Little darling takes her shower (by herself don’tchaknow) and gets ready to go… adding the unfortunate hair accessory of her own free will.
The rest of the photo set are here, or just click the pic above. She had a great time, though there were way too many kids for her comfort. Once a major chunk cleared out she fit right in.
Then we went back to my house. Unfortunately. Ginnie’s fucking son of a bitch piece of shit old fart dog tends to piss all over my house when he doesn’t get outside often enough. Sometimes we find the spots and sometimes we don’t. All of the don’t spots have added up so much so that I can’t sit in the living room any more. Wanda the Witch’s Wonder Nose™ picks up even the slightest odors and she stops being able to breathe. Period.
So Kira and I opted for a nap while (after I was breathless from screaming obscenities at her) Ginnie attempted to clean the living room carpet.
FAIL
So yeah, it’s slightly damp and cool in Arizona this week and that makes it much worse for me. All that and cleaning solvent too! By late evening, even trapped in my bedroom (where the dog isn’t allowed) I can’t control the wheezing. So I made Ginnie take me to the VA hospital before I – you know – died.
When I go into the emergency room anywhere with an asthma attack certain things always happen:
- I always get right in: no triage – no waiting room.
- I always get a breathing treatment immediately.
- Sometimes I’m sent to get chest X-ray, last night they came to me.
- Usually they take blood samples. Sometimes I get an IV for meds.
- Sometimes there is a second or third breathing treatment.
- I almost always leave with prednisone and an antibiotic.
Last night the Doctor (or highest medical on the food chain – nobody tells you who they are) got froggy and ordered an Arterial Blood Gas. Let me tell you, you NEVER want one of those.
First of all, the wonderfully nice but inept nurse butchered my left arm trying to put in the IV before moving to my right wrist – which I HATE because then there’s never any comfortable rest for your hand. Then the respiratory guy (with 15 years experience he’s never had any trouble *rolleyes*) comes down for the ABG from hell. Okay, they have to dig in and find an artery – I get that – but dig is the operative word here. First he tried my left wrist. I tried not to scream too loudly and kept my language non-personal. When that didn’t work he moved to my right arm and I got a little more personal.
I really don’t know if his mother was a bitch or a whore but he certainly was the son of one. And he fucked his mother frequently. So that’s when he gave up and called in reinforcements.
Look, I’m not afraid of needles. On a good day I breeze right through this shit. But as tense as every muscle in my body was after struggling to breathe my blood vessels were apparently just as tense. Oh well.
Reinforcement Tom/Ray/Bob/Some short name popped in and managed to get the ABG out of my arm without too much time or discomfort. I offered to blow him as thanks but he declined. I did tell him to flag my chart so they’d call him if I ever needed to do this again.
By the time it was all over and done I looked like I’d been through a war.
Just not feeling it
Dec 12th
I’ve said in previous years that I wasn’t feeling Christmas but this year is the worst.
I went to my friend’s Holiday Show and that perked me up for a couple of days. But now… not so much. 
I dragged out my Christmas decorations… and sent most of them to Casey’s house.
I’m supposed to go to another friend’s concert tonight and I just can’t get up the strength to go. And I’ve overdosed myself on every Christmas themed moved on TV this weekend to no avail.
I’m just not feeling it. 
Maybe it’s because I have NO money to spare on presents so I’m blocking the whole thing. I even told someone the other day I was atheist and didn’t celebrate, not that it’s true I just didn’t want to get into that whole what are you doing for Christmas conversation.
Well yes, I’m an atheist but I still (usually) appreciate the sharing celebration of the time. I know Casey has a crapload of presents for Kira so I only feel slightly guilty I can’t get her anything. I think I do pretty well at picking out the perfect presents for people, but I’m seriously broke this year. Maybe I can scrounge enough to get groceries for a big dinner. But then I’d have to invite all my kids to my crappy, disgusting, teeny, horrible apartment.
I completely understand why Christmas is the biggest season for suicides. It’s really extra-depressing when everyone around you is cheerful and partying and you’re sitting at home feeling all left out and sorry for yourself. I can’t WAIT for New Years. I hate Christmas.
My IPAH Night – NSFW
Dec 11th
What Ignite Phoenix After Hours is.
After freaking out because I just knew I wouldn’t remember everything despite practicing over and over again, I wasn’t really nervous at all.
Though the very minute I got to the club I managed to trip going up the three lousy steps and bust my knee open. Great start.
I was fourth in line to present. The second presenter rocked the house when she pulled a set of ben-wa balls out of her crotch. Glad I didn’t have to immediately follow her!
Friends recorded my presentation, but it was held in a nightclub and the lighting isn’t prime. And it starts a bit late, but you get most of it.
My Presentation:
If you really want a better view of the slides, here they are:
Walker.fuckin.asthma
View more presentations from Debbie Walker.
Actually I did miss a lot of what I was supposed to say, but I think I covered fairly well.
And here’s me in better light just before the event started. 
All-in-all it was a blast and I’m sooooo glad I did it. Now I never have to do it again.
I need help
Dec 1st
I’m planning a new hair style tomorrow and I’m asking y’all to help me decide.
Do you think something like this (my hair is black) would look okay on me? And in case you didn’t know, I’m the one on the right.
If you have other suggestions, I’m open.
The Rest of the Trip – FL Half
Nov 12th
Then somewhere in the dark Ginnie drove over christmas tree roadkill. Someone lost their cheap and tacky electrically wired tree in the middle of the highway and she made a split-second decision to straddle it to save the tires, but the wire caught up under the car and she could see sparks behind us and freaked out. We pulled over and I yanked out what I could reach, but the wires had wrapped around something under the car. So to avoid getting ran over by some semi, we hit the next exit where she borrowed scissors and crawled under the car. I’m pretty sure that’s where I lost my debit card, crawling around trying to see under the car.
Foggy mornings, so she had her first experience driving in the fog. Then 1 mile out of Florida she moved over to let a couple of GHP cars back on the road and one thanked her by pulling her over. Poor kid, excellent driver with shitty luck. He said she sped up when he got behind her and that was suspicious. Maybe it was the AZ plate. He asks her a bunch of questions, he asks me a bunch of stupid/useless questions (is the Grand Canyon in AZ? Do you have a lot of drug smugglers in AZ? Why were you in DC? How long will you be in FL?) and then wanted to search the car. Really?
Okay, I understand about probable cause and all that shit, but the minute you say no they get all butthurt and cause you more grief. I laughed and pointed at the back seat piled with blankets and crap and told him the trunk was full as well, have a ball, baby. So Ginnie and I stood on the side of the highway for half an hour while he and some other GHP guy searched my car. They even yanked the back seat out! I didn’t even know you could do that with my car. Then the trunk… until the redheaded cop unzipped my sexcation kit and the big burly bald black guy almost fell over laughing. That was that, they tossed everything back in with a thank-you-very-much and no eye contact, and gave her a warning about my windshield. Whatever.
Got to Mom’s – food – Brittany came and picked up Ginnie for the night – helped Mom with her cell phone – next day picked up Ginnie and went to Dad’s – hung out – out to Olive Garden – hung out – dumped Ginnie back at Brit’s – next day to my sister’s to see the boy then back to Mom’s to help her clear out some stuff. Last day brunch with Dad and Bonnie and then hit the road home.
There’s pictures on Flickr and pictures on yFrog (which I HATE) and I can’t figure out how to link to the set.
On the way home we stopped at the Oklahoma City Memorial, Window Rock and then Winslow AZ.
SmallChild is now pissed because I’d rather finish this than take her spoiled little ass to McDonald’s.
The Rest of the Trip – DC Half
Nov 8th
Yeah, this is long. And confused so bear with me. I’m still recovering but if I don’t get this down I’ll forget even more.
We left Tuesday morning and drove up through New Mexico, Texas, and somewhere in Oklahoma Ginnie took a wrong fork and we decided to go for it. Up through Missouri and Kentucky, a bit of Tennessee and finally Virginia. Ginnie got to see her first massive leave changing, the hills and mountains of the east (they are vastly different than the mountains we have here) and we did plenty of talking. We slept in the car the first night but got a room the second. I didn’t want to show up at my friend’s house smelling too bad. Somewhere in there we had tire issues. Or I thought we did, turns out there was nothing wrong with the tire, just that obsessively checking the pressure and using inferior air pumps made the tire appear to be leaking.
We decided to take the Blue Ridge Parkway up though part of Virginia. Now she understands why I loved Virginia so much. It’s a beautiful state and I wish I could still live there but I can’t deal with the cold. Or as it turns out, the traffic. That started backing up clear down to where I used to live in Stafford and didn’t get any better the rest of the weekend. How do those people deal with it? Loopy roads that pretzel so bad you couldn’t possibly find your way around without a GPS. And my Google Navigator was having trouble!
We got to my friend’s Paul’s house and got situated for the night. I had the asthma attack and the day proceeded as I said in my previous post. After the Rally, we took the train to an Atheist/Humanist meetup and eventually found Brian and Janice and especially Bruce. Ginnie really liked Bruce. I probably should have accepted his invitation in the first place. I think Ginnie would have been more comfortable. Anyway, we got back and watched most of the Rally they had recorded.
Sunday we got up and went back into DC. With the Marine Corps Marathon running most of the roads were blocked so we parked the car and rode the train again. The walk from the Smithsonian station to the Air and Space Museum was hard on me but we did it. Halfway through that we decided to hit the Holocaust Museum too. THAT walk was hell. I swear the cold air was trying to kill me but Ginnie was a trooper and patient as could be.
I think out of the whole trip the Holocaust Museum was the most important. Slow and crowded, but it was slow because everyone wanted to see, read and absorb every panel and display. It was very… moving.
From there we went back for the car and drove back into the city. Found a decent parking space nearby Lincoln and wandered around there. Then down to the Vietnam and Korean war memorials.
Monday morning we packed up our stuff and went to the Iwo Jima thing and then headed to Arlington Cemetery and took advantage of tourmobile. I certainly couldn’t have walked up those hills. Though other than not being able to breathe I felt fine. We visited the Kennedy gravesites and then watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns. I’d swear that ceremony was way more elaborate years ago when I lived at Fort Myer. Oh well. At the gates of the cemetery is the Women Veterans Memorial so we went in and looked up my name and there I was. I need to send in more information but the basic stuff is there. I think Ginnie was proud of her old mom.
Then off to Florida.
Rally Recap
Nov 8th
I didn’t actually make it to the rally.
Here’s the thing, I’m sure I’ve told you I’m asthmatic. So I got to my friend’s house fine*, woke up at 4am unable to breathe and had Ginnie take me to the hospital. By the time that was dealt with, the pharmacy trip was dealt with and getting back to my friend’s house happened it was almost 11. We all decided to go to the last stop on the train line for a best chance to get on a train. I’d passed the closer station and spotted the very long line so it seemed like a smart choice. 
Still having difficulty breathing, the walk to the line and then finally (after more than 2 hours in line) we squished into a (the fifth train that went though) train and made it downtown. I managed to walk about 50 steps before I’d have to stop and rest for a while. It was the cold air. I have a real problem breathing in cold air.
So… I got to a bench on the Mall and gave up. Sent Ginnie off to see if she could get close enough to the stage to actually hear anything but the crowd was so thick she couldn’t get in at all. And that was around 3:30 when it was almost over and lots of people were leaving.
I enjoyed the camaraderie of the crowd. People were happy and cheerful and I got to see lots of signs passing by. Some humorous, some serious. I’d tweeted my location hoping any of my friends would come find me but no luck. I’m still glad I went. I felt I accomplished something though I didn’t accomplish anything at all. Does that make sense?
*Watch for the rest of the road trip in another post.
