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I Got Fired by My Doctor

Full disclosure: I hate going to doctors, but at least for half of my life, I did the "right" thing. What is the right thing? I got all the tests, got biopsies when necessary, and submitted to scales, blood pressure cuffs and gynecological exams. Then when my mental health went south, I didn't have the energy to pursue a never-ending stream of mammograms, colonoscopies and the like. I was like flat out unenthusiastic about filling my days with terrifying tests that would only upset my balance even more. What I needed were happy books, films, and lots of anti-depressant medications. Not mornings when all I might have to look forward to were stirrups, speculums, and a professional's finger up my ass. Okay, so I gave up worrying and thinking about my health insofar as tests and doctor visits were concerned. I still took care of my health in a minimal way--I brushed my teeth, saw the dentist regularly, and showered when I had to wash or dye my hair. And I still went to

Convergence of Everything

Have you noticed that everything is intertwined, at least in the arts category? I'll be sitting down to watch a movie on Netflix and for the first five minutes there will be nothing but music and lyrics. No dialogue at all. Does the director do this to save time and energy inventing dialogue? Because if that's the case, he's expecting too much from his audience. I'll be munching on kettle corn when I spot the closed captioned words of lyrics set to music. Sometimes it's a recognizable tune, but more often, it's some country western  ballad that I never heard of. (I'm convinced that a lot of country west tunes are made up on the spot by cowboy-type performers because after they run out of their repertoire, they're stuck for material. So they plunk a few chords on their guitar and say, hey, that sounds pretty discordant. I'll mumble words and wowee, I've got a new song. Maybe I'll even record it.) In fact the whole movie may be based on a count

Martin Luther's Month

I call it Martin Luther's month, but actually all of February is African American history month. All races get to talk about, research, and debate the accomplishments of African Americans both dead and living. For a while there I was intent on introducing a new name to the list of eminent black people who had a hand in making our country great and proving that black people can do anything that white people can do. Maybe even do it better. Her name was Merze Tate, and she was from Michigan. Her parents were farmers who cultivated their 60 government-granted acres and sent their children to school, first in a one-room school house close to their home and then later to schools of higher education. Merze must have been at the very least an accomplished reader because she graduated with honors from a school that tolerated (but didn't welcome) students of the Negro race. And Negro was the term used in Merze's era. She grew up in the 1920s and never missed a day of school despit

It's President's Day and Crying is Allowed

It's President's Day and the only people really ecstatic about this holiday are those who get a paid vacation day and those who are aiming to sell a mess of "on sale" crap to materialistic hordes of people who don't want to stay home with their kids. Both feel rewarded because they figure they're getting free money to do with what they want. Then there's the rest of us. We constitute the majority of the population, and it breaks down into these sectors: 25 percent who attend online or live observances to honor past presidents like Washington and Lincoln; another 25 percent who read or make use of e-media to learn about the Kennedys and other  eminent skeletons in the presidential closet; 25 percent who hate the current President and spend idle moments thinking of workable assassination plots; and the remaining 25 percent who love, adore and worship at the feet of Donald Trump and like the Pied Piper of Hamelin tale, would follow the Donald over the cliff

Funerals Need to be Fun

There's a growing trend to make funerals livelier, "celebrations of life." That's okay for the most part unless the person whose life is being honored has been in jail, abused pets, or killed a lot of harmless creatures like geckos, ants, spiders, and flies. You know who these people are. They usually giggle a lot, especially when they hear about a new antidefoliant like Agent Orange (not so old, but way bad1)They look like butter wouldn't melt in their mouth, but underneath that hard exterior is a confusing tangle of nefarious motivations. But back to the fun at funerals goal. I'm going to a funeral today and I hardly know the deceased. His significant partner is someone I casually know from a club that I quit because most of the members were a-holes. So I have mixed feelings about attending a service for an unknown person when the other attendees are people who cheered when I finally quit the club or made it possible for me to quit without giving a hoot. H

I Am Not Darren Arenofsky

I usually google my name on a regular basis--just to see if I've shown up in the obits--but lately, the geniuses at Google have misspelled and mistook me for Darren Aronofsky. That is the correct spelling of his name, and by all reports in the entertainment world, he is a star in the movie making sector. I'm not sure I've seen any of his films (the latest being "Mother," which got mixed reviews), but even though he's a celeb, I'm not happy being confused with him. And it happens all the time on Google. It's really my husband's fault since I took his last name a million years back when we married. But little did I know then that anyone would choose to spell Arenofsky "Aronofsky," thus confusing all the little minds out there in googleland. I figured Arenofsky was hard enough of a challenge, so people would furrow their brows and concentrate on getting this right. And for a good two decades, they did get it right. But along came Darren Ar

Question: Is Depression Compatible with a Belief in God?

The God question always hovers in the background whenever a person is struck down by any kind of illness. Got cancer? Why did God force this on me? So what if I smoked three packs of cigarettes for 10 years--I still should have fallen under the God Protection Clause if the Big Guy was really up there looking after my welfare. Even lesser diseases like acne and chronic diarrhea get blamed on a missing or decidedly malevolent God. The truth is we seek responsibility for our problems, and God can easily be singled out as the culprit. I don't know how many times when I was really depressed that I just knew God was MIA. How could he/she ignore my suffering, especially when I threw up my hands in despair and crawled into bed like a child hugging a stuffed animal. Grown adult women should not have to grab a teddy bear to get comfort from pain. If God engineered that scenario he has a childish sense of humor that risks embarrassing the people who need him most. Now I ask you, Is that fai