It’s time to make a new documentary.  The topic for this one can be the one-sided reporting on this entire Russia-Georgia conflict.

The United States media is making Russia out to be the aggressor in this little conflict, and not mentioning South Ossetia at all.  In fact, on a FOX News report, when interviewing some Americans who were over there when all of this started, they broke away from the interview TWICE when the people tried to explain what caused all of this.

America, I strongly encourage everyone to read their news from more than one angle.  Check out The Guardian, for starters.

One other point to consider is this:  When the South tried to break away from the United States, the United States went to war.  Has the U. S. changed it’s policy on that?  Because I know this state is full of rednecks who’d like to try again. 

Strutter and her menagerie moved in over the weekend.  This means that my house smells vaguely like dog, there are a ton of packed boxes in the living room, and my bed now looks like this:

It’s going to take some adjustments, but I think things will be fine.

Have you heard how awesome Michael Phelps is?  Apparently he is a better swimmer than Aquaman.  Like, the fastest thing in water since… ever.  So fast, in fact, that he won the 100 meter freestyle relay BY HIMSELF!

If you watched any news reports about the relay race yesterday, and there were several different reports, you might understand what I’m talking about.  On the last leg of the relay race, America was almost a full body-length behind France.  In a heroic display of effort, Michael Phelps swam like a fish to overtake the Frenchman and win the event.

Wait…  that’s not how it happened at all.  Michael Phelps had already swum his lap, and America was behind.  It was Jason Lezak who put on the water-jets and snatched victory from his ass.  A 32-year old man came from behind and beat the French world-record holder for the 100m freestyle.  But did the media talk about that?  Hell no.  They couldn’t shut up about how Michael Phelps was on-track for winning eight gold medals.  In fact, the most aired video clip wasn’t the final seconds of the race, where Lezak wins by a fingernail.  It was of Michael Phelps screaming like some wild barbarian.

What the fuck is wrong with this country when we celebrate the arrogant dream of someone more than we celebrate the actual victory that his teammate brought home?

I hope Phelps doesn’t get his eight gold medals.  I hope he doesn’t get five.  The Olympics aren’t supposed to be about one person.  They’re supposed to be about the world.

In other news, Russia invaded the hell of of Georgia.  Obama is planning a trip to Atlanta to survey the damage. 

So, the part I left out about the colonoscopy was that the doctor ripped out a polyp and send it off for a biopsy.  He called me yesterday and told me that it wasn’t cancerous. I think this situation was all I really needed to be able to say “No” to cigarettes from now on.  I haven’t had one since June 30th, and I haven’t had the desire for one.

When I was 18, my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer. It was rather invasive, but the doctor managed to cut it all out, and she’s been in remission ever since. Since colon cancer is a hereditary disease, the doctor recommended that I go ahead and have myself checked. The procedure is called a sigmoidoscopy, and it was so unpleasant that I put off my ten-year checkup indefinitely.

Recently, though, I was given a reminder that I want to be around for awhile, and should schedule that. The procedure, thankfully, no longer involves that painful sigmoid scope. Now it’s just a colonoscopy, and they go twice as far in. The advantage this time is that they knock you out. The part I wasn’t looking forward to was the day of prep required, which happened to be Sunday.

Saturday night, I had some serious lower back pain, as if I’d pulled a muscle. It was so bad that I couldn’t sleep more than an hour without it waking me up. Because of the upcoming colonoscopy, I’m not allowed to take aspirin or ibuprofen. I’m also not allowed to drink. So all of my preferred numbing agents are not an option.

Sunday morning, the pain was even worse after giving it a night without stretching it out. I can’t describe how painful it is outside of saying that getting up off of the floor and into a chair made me pass out. Twice. Strutter wanted to help, but I’m too proud to let her see me helpless, so I came home by myself. I had to pull over twice because I was so light-headed.

I also have a schedule to follow for today, which mainly consists of drinking a cup of water every hour, with two exciting drugs thrown in for fun. I’ve decided to keep an ongoing log of the events, and post this later. This post might get too gross, so be warned.

SUNDAY

8:00am - I drank my first prescribed glass of water. This is after two other glasses that I had around 5:00 because I couldn’t sleep. I also took three Tylenol. Apparently Tylenol is allowed because it doesn’t do anything to my body… including numbing any pain.

9:00am - Sat up for almost ten minutes after my glass of water. Pain is excruciating, and I’m wondering how this is going to affect tomorrow.

10:00am - Drank another glass of water. It’s ridiculous how full I am. I can hear and feel the water sloshing around in my stomach. I don’t think I can drink another glass in an hour.

11:00am - Forced half a glass of water down. If I tried to drink any more than that, I’d throw it up. What’s really amazing to me is that I can be SO hungry right now, but so full of water at the same time.

12:00pm - Took another two Tylenol. I don’t know why I bothered, since the last dose didn’t do anything. I also drank the first prescribed laxative, Phospho-Soda. I’m having a very hard time not throwing it up, but I will keep it down. The thought of drinking it again is worse than the thought of throwing up. I’m putting in Four Rooms to watch while it takes effect.

1:00pm - Drank a few sips of water. I’m in pain, I feel like I’m going to throw up, and I know that the laxative s going to kick in far too soon.

2:00pm - I’ve made three trips to the bathroom in one hour. Now I see why they wanted me to drink so much water. The pain in my back has not subsided, but I’m sure it makes my urgent stumblings to the bathroom look quite comical.

3:00pm - Finished watching Four Rooms. Total trips to the bathroom is up to five now. I tried drinking some water. I immediately burped up most of it, and it tasted like the artificial lemon of the laxative. To top off the misery, I’m getting a migraine.

4:00pm - Strutter sent me a text message to check on me, which made me feel a lot better. It’s funny how unscientific that is, but it’s still true. I skipped my water. There’s no way I can drink another one. I’m up to six bathroom trips now. I think I’m going to try and get some sleep in before the next laxatives at 6:00.

5:00pm - Dad called and left a message checking on me. It woke me up just as I was about to drift off to sleep, but I still appreciated it. I drank half a glass of water. I haven’t gone back to the bathroom yet, which I take as a small blessing.

6:00pm - A storm rolled in and the thunder makes me even more sleepy, if that were possible. I feel like I’m drugged, except without the numbness. I just drank a glass of water and took four of the laxative pills. (The maximum dosage on the box is two.) Tonight should be a lot of fun.

9:30pm - I managed to get a couple of hours sleep before the stomach cramps woke me up. I’m surprised there’s anything left inside me to evacuate.

MONDAY

6:30am - I managed to get another hour of sleep in last night, but the pain in my back and in my stomach, combined with the almost constant trips to the bathroom, kept me awake for most of the night. Strutter is on her way over to pick me up and drive me in to the hospital soon.

9:00pm - The procedure was over before I knew it because they knocked my ass out. I ate a couple of pieces of pizza and then spent most of the day sleeping in bed with Strutter. I’m glad she’s around, even though I hate being helpless around her. It’s comforting.

I think I broke comments.  :(  Email me if you can’t post a comment now.

It’s funny how you can look back on a day six months ago, and feel like it was just yesterday.

It’s also funny how you can think about how you’ve only known someone for six months, but it feels like forever.

And whenever you feel like you’ve known someone forever, and it feels like only yesterday that you sat with them on the floor of your living room and told them that you wanted to be with them, and only them, then I guess that must really mean something.

Happy six month anniversary, Strutter.  I look forward to the next six months, and the six after that, and after that, and after that, and after that…

My last post earned me a few emails and even a phone call, just to make sure I was doing all right.  I just wanted to thank those folks.

Anyway, things worked out with a last-minute cancellation at the specialist, and I got in to see him last week because his office is five minutes from my workplace.  It went fairly well, but he wants to do one more test which can’t happen until July 7th.  It’s all right, though, because the pain has subsided to an occasional dull throb.

Strutter returned from her vacation, and actually thought to bring me a present.  I’ve never had a girl bring me anything back from a vacation before, and never received anything so thoughtful as this.  It’s a hand-crafted wooden box with brass circles placed on each side, making it a die.  Inside the box are eight little wooden dice, all made to look like the box.  This gift told me that she has embraced my nerdy side, and means that I’ll probably have to marry her before she finds some other nerd. 

The dogs (and cat) are doing well after my week of sitting them.  There were two times that things got a little hairy.  The first was around three in the morning, when Taj woke me up to go outside.  I was not too happy about this, as I’d taken four Tylenol PM capsules a couple of hours before, but I opened the door and stoop there, groggily watching him as he pranced around the yard before finding a place to pee.  After he did, he came back up to the back patio and decided he didn’t want to come back in.  He just flopped down in a small hole and stared at me.  I wasn’t going to wait on him to change his mind, so I closed the sliding glass door.  Well, I almost closed it.  It gave me a bit of a fight at the last three inches…  and made some terrible yowling noise.  Oh shit.  I think I just killed the cat. Looking down, I saw a small gray and black blur streak off towards the back of the house.  As I closed the door, Taj decided that he wanted to come in after all.  (The cat was fine.  I had to hunt her down for ten minutes, but I was able to cajole her out from under the bed and make sure I didn’t break anything.)

The second hairy moment was one afternoon when it was about to rain and I was starving.  I didn’t have anything to eat at the house, but I didn’t want to put the dogs outside right before it started raining because, with my luck, they’d be soaked and covered in mud by the time I got back with food.  So I made a command decision.  I’d leave them in the house and made a quick sprint to the store.  It’d only be five minutes.  So I locked them in and sped off to buy some Lean Pockets.  I got back to the house just as the first drops of rain were starting to fall, and let myself in.

I should probably explain what happens when I walk in the house and the dogs are there.  They attack me.  Taj will charge me with whatever toy was closest to him when he heard me pull up, and proceed to jab it into my thighs, crotch, and ass until I play with him.  Chewbacca will dance in place, barking wilding and waging her tail so hard that her entire back end wiggles back and forth.  (I call this the butt-waggle.)  She will do this until I pet her like crazy, and then she will continue to bark at me every time I stop petting her.  Anyway, I walked in the house and got dog-swarmed.

I’m carrying my keys in one hand, because I just re-locked the front door, and the grocery bag in the other.  Both of the dogs are barking like they haven’t seen me in months, even thought I’d just given each of them a rawhide bone five minutes ago.  (I figured if they were gnawing on a rawhide, they’d leave everything else alone.)  So I turn around from locking the door, and Taj jumps up at me.

Do you remember the physical comedy pranks that boys played in middle school?  Like the one where Person A crouches down right behind the knees of the victim, while Person B shoves against the victim’s chest?  Imagine that scenario, where Person A is a butt-waggling Chewbacca, Person B is a hundred forty-five pounds (66 kg) of playful Taj, and the victim is me.

Down I went, twisting desperately so as not to crush poor Chewie, and spraining my knee in the process.  But I succeeded in saving her life, and was immediately rewarded with face-licks.

No dogs were harmed in the making of this story, although Chewie isn’t drawn to scale very well…

This week has sucked more than almost any other week in my life.  Okay, that might be an exaggeration.  But it’s been pretty shitty.  It’s a combination of several different things, all melding together into one giant ball of suck.

First, work has gotten extremely busy and stressful for me.  Our dispatch guy quit and the company, in an effort to cut spending, decided not to hire a replacement.  Instead, they figured I could just add it on top of my workload.  Without increasing my pay.  This means I’m pretty much on the phone from the minute I get in until the minute I leave, talking to new people while having to resolve the problems from the person three phone calls before.  I tell you, it makes it hard to sneak in text messages to Strutter.

Second, Strutter is on vacation with her family this week.  Having spent two months together with only four days apart, this week has seemed SO long.  At least she calls me three or four times a day to check on her dogs…

Third, I’m pet-sitting.  Unlike normal pet-sitters, who swing by and drop food off, play with the pets for a bit, and go back home, I moved in.  Don’t get me wrong, I love spending time with the dogs.  (The cat has pretty much avoided me.)  If not for them, I’d probably be in an even worse mood this week.  But it means that I haven’t spent the night in my own house in almost two weeks, and I’m getting homesick.  It also means that I’m being woken up every morning at 5:00am by the worst dog breath ever, and occasionally a drop of drool landing on my forehead.  (”Thanks, Taj.  No, really, I wanted to wake up this early.”)

Fourth, I quit smoking again last Saturday.  This is just adding to my already-critical grump-factor.

Fifth, I’ve gained six pounds in the past two weeks.  I have no doubt that it’s because I was introduced to Ben & Jerry’s Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream, and there’s no one to blame but myself, but blaming myself makes me grumpy.

Lastly, I’ve developed a slight health problem.  All right, it’s not slight at all.  It’s bad enough that it keeps me awake some nights, balled up in pain and unable to sleep at all before going in to work the next day.  I made an appointment with a specialist for the first available date, which is three weeks from now.  Until then, let’s just hope I don’t overdose on Tylenol PM, because that’s the only thing aside from liquor that knocks me out despite the pain.  (It’s not a terminal disease, nor is it an STD.  That’s all I’m going to say about it.)

So that’s about it…  I’m walking around stressed out over work, lonely, craving nicotine, tired, fat, and sometimes peppered with dog-spittle.  It’s not my fault if I kill someone before Saturday.  Right?

I had to see what all the hype was about.  It won four Oscars ( Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Achievement in Directing, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published) and was nominated for four others.  Many of my friends had told me how awesome it was, and how utterly violent it was, so I added No Country for Old Men to my Netflix queue and moved it to the top.

I want to take this opportunity to personally apologize to every movie that got pushed down a notch so I could view this piece of shit that everyone called a great film.

The movie is about a country bumpkin who stumbles across a drug deal gone wrong.  All the Mexican dope-dealers have shot and killed one another, leaving the drugs and millions in cash to be found by our Texas redneck hero.  Of course, that money belongs to someone, and they send a giant hitman, who I will call Lurch, to get their money back.  (Thank God that Lurch just happened to be in this piss ant town already.)

Lurch isn’t your average nine-foot tall hitman, though.  He carries around an air hammer with him.  You know what an air hammer is, right?  One of those pneumatic weapons they use to kill cows at a slaughterhouse?  Anyway, it’s about the dumbest fucking way I can imagine letting someone kill me.  Although it’s very handy to knocking the entire locking mechanism out of door, apparently.

So Lurch is chasing Hillbilly Jim, who turns out to be a resourceful Vietnam veteran, and manages to stay one step ahead of his demise for what feels like four hours of movie.  In between the exciting blasting off of locks and sporatic gunfire, there are long dialogues from our narrator, Tommy Lee Jones, who is the local sheriff.

Let me get sidetracked here.  As the narrator, I really expected Tommy Lee Jones to have an actual part in the movie.  Instead, he just wanders around a lot and comments on the dead Mexican drug dealers, the viciousness of Lurch, and offers to help out Hillbilly Jim by calling Jim’s wife and telling her to let him know.

And then, about seventeen hours into the film, Lurch catches and kills Hillbilly Jim.  And they don’t even have the courtesy to show it.  I waited seventeen hours for this final confrontation, and they sum it up by showing the motel surrounded by police and the wife crying.  WHAT…. THE…. FUCK????

I was so pissed off at this point that I didn’t even pay attention to the last fifteen minutes of the movie, where Tommy Lee Jones is sitting at his breakfast table talking to his wife.  I couldn’t even tell you what the general topic was because I wasn’t listening.  I’m sure it was about how his Daddy never saw no crime like that, or how horrible mankind can be, or something that would brainwash the Oscar committee into thinking that this movie really said something about the world we live in today…. the world full of fifteen-foot tall hitmen who kill people with air hammers.

Fuck you, Cohen brothers.  I want my Netflix account credited for twenty-eight cents, and I want my eighteen hours back so I can watch something else, like Baby, Secret of the Lost Legend.

In other news, my parents loved Strutter, and she seems to like them back.

I’m usually very quick to introduce a new girlfriend to my parents. I love my folks, and think they’re very cool people to hang out with and spend an evening drinking and eating chicken wings with. Early on, I hinted that I wanted to take Strutter out there one night and get this step over with, but she was a little nervous about it. Of course she was nervous, because my mother was having other folks over, and it was going to be a big production. So we didn’t do it, and I think that only increased the anxiety over it.

She’s also a little nervous over the fact that she cusses like a sailor. I don’t think I’ve had a conversation with her where she didn’t drop the F-bomb. So yeah, she’s not exactly a lady. But if she was, I wouldn’t be interested in her.

So here we are, five months into the relationship and I’ve met most of her family, all of whom I adore, and she’s only met a few of my friends. (And I’m so glad that she gets along with my friends. I was incredibly nervous that she would be afraid of the geek herd.) Last night I was making plans to run out to the parents’ house and pick up some things, and told them I’d come by on Saturday. Earlier this week, I’d told Strutter that I’d take her out there with me this weekend for a quick “Hi, how are you?” and equally quick retreat. Strutter has to work on Saturday… I basically uninvited Strutter to go with me, and I feel like an ass.

I wasn’t thinking at all, and I’m pretty sure I hurt Strutter’s feelings because of it. Now there’s even more anxiety built up, and if I change plans to go out there on Sunday, and take her with me then, it will look like I’m just trying to appease her. (And I am, because I don’t like upsetting her, but I also DO want her to meet my folks.)

Oddly enough, I’m not the least bit nervous about the meeting, whenever it happens. I know that my parents will love her, and that she’ll love them right back. So I guess I need to just make plans and write them down on the calendar…

I’m not an avid listener of NPR, but more because I prefer to listen to CDs that I’ve made myself than the radio.  When a CD gets old, though, I’ll flip through the stations and usually end up on NPR because I can’t stand the constant commercials of the other stations.

Today at lunch, I was listen to On Point.  The topic was the expectations of a spouse in today’s marriage.  More specifically, the dangers of making your spouse your best friend, your only confidant, and your only social partner.

It was very interesting to listen to, because I’m partly guilty of this behavior.  You could ask any of my friends how often they see me now that I’m dating Strutter and most of them would respond with, “Who is Stuckey?”  This past week is a little different.  I’ve been social outside of Strutter twice since Saturday.  But the majority of the time, she is the only person I hang out with in a day, and that’s pretty much every day.

The program introduced a few experts, all of whom voiced the same concern:  When you have only one person with whom you can talk to about all of your problems, what happens when there are problems between you and that person?  Who can you go to and talk about those problems, and be assured that they’re perfectly normal problems and everyone else has them?

I see both sides of the answer, really.

I believe that if you have problems between yourself and your partner, the first person you should converse with about them is your partner.  Maybe they don’t even realize that they chew with their mouth open.  Maybe they’re unaware that they left the toilet seat up.  Maybe they’ll converse right back with you and explain that the reason they’ve been acting differently isn’t because they’re having second thoughts, but because they’re worried that you were.  To me, communication is the number one reason that relationships succeed, and lack of communication is the number one reason they fail.

Of course, there are times in a relationship where the two of you simply want to do different things.  One of you may want to go and play toy soldiers with your friends while the other wants to stay at home and lay on the floor with the dogs and watch television.  In these situations, I think it’s best to go and do your separate things.  People need outlets, and need small breaks from one another.  (Just be aware that some of these small breaks can end up running long as shit, and before you know it, you’ve been playing toy soldiers for nine freaking hours and your legs and back are sore from standing up so long.  If this happens, make sure you call often and give updates.)

The downside to letting your friends in on you and your partners problems is that it really isn’t their business.  And if there are a lot of problems that you share with them, they will start to get a negative mental picture for your partner because that’s all that they’re hearing.  This, however, might just be my opinion.  I tend to be a quiet person and don’t really let people in all that much.

The biggest reason I found the radio show interesting is because I’ve been thinking about this subject a lot lately.  I’m planning on moving Strutter in with me, which means I’ll be seeing even more of her than I am now.  Does that mean I’ll totally withdraw from social life?  Or does it mean I’ll go back to my normal social level?

I guess we’ll find out when it happens. 

I’ve mentioned before, in the early chapters of Nice Ass, just how opposite I am to a morning person.  If I were in the wild, and had no job or responsibilities, I would sleep until sometime in the early afternoon and then wake up to eat and nap until it was time was to go to sleep proper. Thankfully, Strutter is the same way.  This is a good thing, because all it would take is one too-chipper, “Good morning, Mookie!” in a singsong voice for me to club her to death with the alarm clock.  (Thus stopping the alarm clock from beeping at the same time.  Even in a sleepy fog, I can be efficient.)

So, because of my infatuation with sleep, I’ve grown accustomed to certain anti-sleep measures, such as a cold shower first thing in the morning and keeping the house cooler so I have to hurry around and get dressed.  I never considered, however, that holding a skinny girl hostage in my house would mean a change to the environment.

Apparently, being a 95 pound girl means that cold affects you far more than it does, say, a 297 pound guy.  She’s always wrapping up in blankets and shivering and burrowing into me like some adorable parasite.  While incredibly cute, all of that goes out the window in the morning, when she’s just woken up and it’s cold.  She’s this tiny little bomb that unleashes a full-force grumpsplosion.  And while that sounds cute, and might even be cute when viewed after the fact, it’s quite upsetting when experienced first-hand.

And so, tonight after work, I am going to adjust the programming in my thermostat to make my house warmer.  I will also check the temperature in the bedroom and compare it to the thermostat to make sure that the heat is distributing correctly.

Relationships are a series of compromises, and the temperature in my house is something I’m perfectly willing to give ground on.  What do I get in return for this compromise?  Well, she’s going to let me play Warhammer this weekend with all of my gamer friends… and she also stuck a Kotex pad on my bathroom mirror with the words “I LOVE YOU” written across it.

Yeah, I’ve been quiet lately.  I’ve got nothing new to say.  No funny stories of my antics in the kitchen.  No heart-wrenching confessions to make.  No mushy talk of how I feel about Strutter.  (Though I’m feeling even more mushy than previously, if that’s possible.)

Life is good.  Stuck is happy.  I’m sure there will be something good to write about soon.

I’ve had a few cigarettes over the past week and a half.  I’ve also been eating worse lately, and slacking in my exercise  routine.  This has been reflected on my weekly weigh-in, where I’ve only lost one pound in the past four weeks.  (At least I haven’t gained any.)  I could cop out and say that I was stressed more than usual, that I was worried about several things, that the cravings were just too strong…  but the truth of the matter is that I’ve been weak.

Rather than beat myself over it, which is my usual course of action and hasn’t proven very effective in the past, I’ll just acknowledge that I made a poor choice, and move forward with the clock reset.

My name is Ben, and I’ve been a non-smoker for ten hours hours and thirty minutes.  My goal is to lose another 50 pounds before December 25th of this year, at which point I will set a new goal for next year’s weight loss.