What About the Vessels?

So, here's a question about the recent Health Care Reform disaster bill. There was much hullabaloo about the role government funding would play in abortions. On the other end of the spectrum was a dearth of concern for pregnancy coverage.

But, KAK, pregnancies are covered under regular health insurance.

Nope, they're not, not for those of us who are individually insured. It is an option that costs significantly more, upwards of $100/month more. Prior to the Pre-Existing Condition expiration in 2014, if I don't have pregnancy coverage before I am pregnant, all well-mother/well-fetus exams and treatments will not be covered by my insurance company. Whether I'll be able to get coverage in 2014 if I am surprised by a pregnancy remains to be known.

Remember, kiddies, only abstinence is 100% effective.

Well, that and chat room masturbation.

Okay, I understand, my government views my body as a community vessel -- that's a hotbed of contention for another forum -- in the meantime, could we, as a nation, stop for just a moment and consider the point beyond conception yet before arrival?

Could we, you know, care about the vessel?

There Will Be Smoke Coming from Your Mouth

"There will be smoke coming from your mouth. I thought I should warn you." This from my dentist while I'm playing tonsil hockey with a mouth condom.

Bill Cosby screaming, "Fi-ber, Fiii-ber," floated through my mind, but I couldn't begin the mimic since half of my face was numb, the weight of drill held my jaw down, and the aforementioned condom tested my gag reflex.

Today was Root Canal Day. 

Lawzy, lawzy, let the festivities begin!

Many well meaning souls offered advice and sympathy, all to such a point that fear forced the use of clinical strength deodorant. You do not want your dentist fainting from fetid stench. It is a gross understatement to say I have a low threshold for pain. I have no threshold. I faint from a splinter in my thumb. Yet the past four years have been an exercise in oral tortures that would make the Marquis de Sade quite proud.

In my infinite wisdom, I decided that puberty wasn't enough fun the first time around. I revisited it in my thirties. Yeehaaaaw. I started with braces, full gunmetal-gleaming goo-snagging after-dinner-treating top and bottom braces. Halfway through my exquisite pretties, my orthodontist and an oral surgeon decided that cracking my face with a croquet mallet would be the ultimate solution to stop me from gnawing on my food like a wildebeast (they're hopeful the snarling will abate in three to five years).

If you've never worn a bra for your cheeks,
you're missing a high point in lingerie.

I have survived spacers, monthly ratcheting, a Terminator rebuild, metal-from-cement bracket removal, and the requisite clean up of laser gum trimming, polishing, and whitening.

Nothing is more excruciating than teeth whitening.

Nothing.

My dentist is fully aware of my issues with pain and needles. She ensured I was reduced to the state of a drooling Bullmastiff before firing up the drill and vacuum. While I may have left her office dragging one foot behind me, slobbering, and mumbling, "yeth, mather. yeth, mather," I did not leave in discomfort.  

Truth be known, being attacked by Captain Hook during routine cleanings is far worse than a root canal.  

All hail numbing goo.

Silhouettes on the Shades

Remember that doo-wop classic, Silhouettes on the Shades? It would have been helpful had it leapt to mind when my sixty-year old aluminum blinds went crashing to the hardwood floor. For wee bit over a year, lovely ivory canvas curtains - lined, naturally - have prevented me from being arrested as an exhibitionist.

Or so I thought.

Recently, civic duty provided the misfortune of having to begin my day before dawn. This required lights to be turned on so that I did not trip over and be killed by my bairy heasts who had scattered about the room over the course of hard night. Walking said beasts during horrific pre-dawn revealed that those lovely curtains merely diffused images. They did not deign to go so far as to obscure the color of certain items in the room...a ground floor room.

Random honking at strange hours now explained.

If you will excuse me, I have new blinds to hang. doh

No Cushings

My morning started off in the best way imaginable...Nope, that way. We all know morning breath bumps that down to a three or four on the Top 5 Ways to Wake Up list.

This morning, the phone rang and the voice at the other end said, "Really great news, KAK. Warty Beast does not have Cushings Disease." Yippee. No, really. Yippee. 'Cause treatment boils down to beastie chemo. I'll go to great lengths for my bairy heasts. I give them the same considerations as I give a human in my care. The catch?

I'm all about quality of life superseding quantity of life.

Not every cure is worth the the hell of salvation. How many cures actually restore the sick to comparable health? Not as many as one would like to think. Somewhere along the winding path of medical advancements we, the populace, lost sight of existing not equaling living. There is no universal scale by which that equality can be measured. It has to be an individual decision. That decision is one we are terrified someone else will make for us, so we muddle onward, laboring under misguided notions of longevity and deserved distrust.

If there is sentience and opportunity after death, one can guess where I'll be found.

When the Kaiyaiing Beast Takes Over Your Writing

Lately, I've been inundated with stories told in First Person, particularly in Urban Fantasy (UF) and Romance novels. When an author chooses that voice and that point of view (POV) to tell their tale, that author has committed to an extraordinarily difficult task. There are the obvious reasons:

1. Being fully within the character's head/Becoming the narrator -- Princess doesn't talk about her "junk" and Butch never considers fuchsia a fabulous color
2. Revealing tidbits as the character learns about them -- Unless Barfy has x-ray vision, he's not going to know about the bogeyman lurking behind the door
3. Seeing settings and behaviors through the character's eyes -- Snuggles can't see the malevolent storm rolling from the north if she's under the bed

Obvious, right? Limiting what the reader knows is the best reason to write from First Person. Rational people don't wander into a house with a bomb ticking, but if Max has to put the Haagen Dazs in the freezer before the other sniffy-snouts abscond with it, a time bomb isn't even on his radar...neither is the were-bear charging toward his window.

The death trap of First Person writing is when the prose sound like a beast with its tail caught in the door.

I stalked the werebeast, my blade held high. I moved when it moved. I peed when it peed. I was almost done when it squatted lower. I couldn't do that. There was poison ivy at my feet.

Can you hear it? "I...I...I...I"  Yes, it makes you want to run from it while your ears bleed or dash in and save it while your eyes bleed. Either way, the reader is no longer focused on the story but on salvation. In fairness to the authors, kaiyaiing is a second revision edit. Remember:

First draft = story spewed pages. Second draft = clean up on aisle seven.

Some readers will chuck a book if it's written in First Person. I'm not one of them unless someone is attempting it in romance. I have yet to read a He-Loves-Me He-Loves-Me-Not (published or hoping to be) written in First Person that made me feel the love and the passion. That genre lends itself to the titillation of third person, possibly because there should be a "her" POV and a "him" POV. If it's all "I, I, I," the reader suffers a crisis of gender and sexual preference with a little dash of androgyny. Intriguing character complication in some genres, but not suitable for mainstream romance.

For those intrepid writers who love the First Person, please, be kind to your Betas and save them from the kaiyaiing beasts.

i

Man Made Tawdry Imps

Just when I fear the tawdry imps scampering about my mind have taken an extended vacay, I stumble across the genius that is a Dolce & Gabbana ad exec.

Whole new meanings to Man Made.

Thank you mystery ad campaign person. Thank you.