Plinky: What are your obsessions and why?

  • Hurricane Sandy 2012

    Hurricane Sandy 2012 (Photo credit: charliekwalker)

    We all have obsessions. What do you obsess about? Why? See all answers

  • My obsessions
  • Accidents. Terminal Illness. Plane Crashes. School shootings. Any type of shootings, 9/11 Again. Health and Safety Issues. Sickness. Explosions, Fires, Bombs. Natural Disasters, Nuclear Weapons…do you get the picture?Horrible things have happened before and seem to be happening at a rapid pace. I feel scared; I don’t let it stop me from doing things but sometimes inside me, I am a crouched, quivering child.Why?
    Because these are all random things; they are out of my control and most importantly, no one can tell me they are never going to happen again.If only…..The world has become a very, scary place.

I Just Want To Laugh, Really

English: Screenshot of Julie Andrews from the ...

English: Screenshot of Julie Andrews from the trailer for the film Mary Poppins (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I know you’re smiling, I’m tickling you under your chin, come on, you know you love this movie too. Am I right? Just look at the picture of Mary Poppins, I can tell you are melting. I know every word and song from the original movie “Mary Poppins” and I’m 56 years old. Hopefully you remember it with great fondness like I do or maybe your parents showed it to you, (or dear God, your grandparents.) It is an absolutely FANTASTIC movie and, in my opinion, one of the best made films I have ever seen. It was filmed in the early sixties and I still watch it from time to time. I felt so hum-drum today that I wanted to laugh, I miss laughing.

After looking on Youtube  and finding foul-mouthed comedians, which did not amuse me, I gave up. I gave up until I remembered Mary Poppins and the scene with the laughing man on the ceiling. Sure enough, Youtube (thank you) found it for me. Whenever that man laughed so hard, he flew up in the air. To this day, when I even think about that scene I smile. That glorious feeling when your belly whoops in laughter that comes so fast you can’t take a breath and it actually hurts. Where tears roll down your face and your nose gets kind of snotty, in a good way because no one else is around you. Even writing this is making me smile and believe me, that’s better than nothing. The last time I laughed heartily, I think, was on the phone with one of my kids. I don’t remember what it was about, I just remember the luscious feeling of having laughed so hard. Hey, I’m old and getting old is no fun so you need to forgive a gal. Did I just write “Gal?” I couldn’t sound older even if I tried. Do my children even know that word? I sound old, like a granny in a rocking chair with her white hair tied up in a bun. Whatever. Who cares?

I want to knee-slap, guffaw and double over with laughter. It’s such a serious world, a tremendously serious and dangerous world that I don’t know how to have fun anymore. An old movie? Old reruns of classic TV? You know you are getting older when you watch comedians and when they just curse, word after word, you don’t find them funny just vulgar. Get over it, honey, you need a new schtick, this one is too old and unbecoming. (You know who you are) and you know (Jerry Seinfeld, Ray Romano, Ellen Degeneres) we love you, because you are very funny and seem to be nice people as well. We need that.

The answer? Since I haven’t come up with anything original, I’ll have to pop (pun intended) in the DVD I have of Mary Poppins and watch the movie now. Who can resist? I know I can’t. Watch the clip, join me for a couple of minutes, I hope you laugh.

The Map To Nowhere Fast

Chronic pain

Image via Wikipedia

I have a weird feeling of unrest and stress, slimy blue- green and flourescent orange winding its way around my brain is how I picture it, how I feel it. No soothing colors of white and yellow and beige. Fake colors, unnatural.  I frown more than I smile and as hard as I am trying to focus on the positive it’s not easy. There is so much going on in my life that it’s hard to focus. I don’t think it’s just me though, I think it’s a lot of people.  It’s a feeling, not a good one, somewhere between the roads of anxious and depressed, stopping at weary.

There are natural disasters all over the world and I am sure we all feel, not only heartbroken for other people, but scared. There is too much sinewy stuff whirling around and no happy place to settle. What happened to my “happy place” images? Why am I only seeing the rain battering the purple flowers instead of the blooming of the flowers alone.

There is tension inside my house, we are in “the sandwich generation” that I used to read about. It isn’t fun, it’s scary. The “baby boomers” who have restless teenagers and aging parents who are alone or ill or depressed. I am that “baby boomer” now except I have the added affliction of my own “chronic pain.” Fibromyalgia and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis do not do me any favors, I walk along slowly, painfully, I stumble through different medications and expectations. Very low expectations.

I also have narrow-angled glaucoma which is a dangerous disease or as one unfriendly opthalmologist put it “you could go blind in an instant.” Quite a bedside manner, don’t you think? Needless to say, I stopped going to him. It’s funny that I barely write about this condition, maybe it’s pure, frigid fear. Maybe there is only so much pain I can handle. My brain and eyes get hammered, with laser shocks, every few months by a doctor that I once believed was very good. I don’t think so anymore. “In twenty years of practicing, I’ve never had a patient whose eyes kept closing up like yours do.”  Every time I go to the city he lasers my eyes again, because the hole he drilled into me has closed. He does this procedure either in his office or in the hospital with no pain relief; imagine barbed wire going through your eyes and brain, quickly, twenty or thirty times in a row. The eye drop he casually puts in gives me incredibly painful headaches (migraines?) I do know that the pain I feel is barbaric, no pain medications, no anesthesia, no break. Over and over again; fast and furious.

The gray, dreary day does not help me since I feel overwrought and unfocused. I am dealing with both chronic pain, (Fibromyalgia, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis) and new back pain that feels like my back bent and broke itself during sleep like a twisted pretzel you find in any mall. I am trying to accept my life for what it is, both bad and good, often simultaneously. Change is in the air like a dog-sniffing a new scent, it’s just hard to predict when and where things will happen.

I read an article in the NY Times today about a young couple with a young daughter. Each parent has cancer. That, is a problem I say to myself, not the dreary workings of an often too-emotional, anxious and pain- filled mind. I am so sorry Nathan and Elisa. You and your baby have my prayers because perspective is the greatest gift of all. I will speak no more.

The Donald, Oprah And President Barack Obama

Donald Trump enters the Oscar De LA Renta Fash...

Image via Wikipedia

I am not the only one who feels stressed out. It seems the world is in a very stressful and sorry state. Not just in our country (The USA) either, it seems that everywhere there are horrible natural disasters, wars in different countries, debt, unemployment and no hope for the near future. Instead of asking President Obama for reassurance, which I am sure he would love to do if he could, I’m asking Oprah for her take on the situation. I trust HER.  Oprah is the only person I want to run for President because I believe in her. So, right now, in the middle of many world crises, I choose her. I pick her. I want her to tell us that things will work out and that the karma that really goes around comes around because unfortunately I’m starting to doubt that. I’m just not one hundred percent sure if that really is true anymore but if Oprah proclaimed it to be true, now, I would become a believer again.

I saw Donald Trump being interviewed by Meredith Viera today. I was absolutely speechless but The Donald certainly was not. Even the looks and grimaces on Meredith Viera’s face were newsworthy. She was practically spitting at him. The Donald was saying that he is pretty sure that “Barack Obama” is not a United States citizen. Again. WHY, Donald, why? You were so emphatic on the show today that even I, an avid Barack Obama supporter, started thinking that maybe there was something behind that. (Did I just say that?)

I’m beginning to fear for my brain. If I am actually starting to question my judgment about President Obama that is a very scary thing. So, I will not be listening to Donald Trump anymore (except on The Celebrity Apprentice) and I will continue to try to have faith in this Administration. It isn’t an easy job, and we know what shape the world was in when the President took office. But still… I need some answers, I need some faith, and I need some hope and the only one who could possibly do that now is: Oprah. Oprah Winfrey for President of the United States, 2012. I’m in.