94 degrees

After almost a year... I am working full time in a department store, with benefits. I haven't examined the benefits package to see how good it is, but it is better than nothing.
I also hope that I will be able to schedule some shows around the work schedule. 

Today, it is f**king HOT, but I need to go get some cigarettes.

Jacques Brel - Voir un ami pleurer

This being 2010...

of course my butt is sore. I think that I've been sitting too long, and it does aggravate the old bed sore. I have been meaning to write something here all year, but circumstances made that difficult. If I feel up to it later, I will try to write everything up.
Just for the record, circumstances include emergency heart surgery due to an aortic dissection, the sale of my home and a car accident, due to which I have a broken wrist and opposite shoulder.
It has been an interesting year so far.

Follow-up

I went to see the surgeon the other day.
First of all, he agreed with what the cardiologist had to say last month - that my heart was in great shape, and I have been recovering wonderfully.
After that, I asked him about my tooth. I have a cavity in my upper left molar, and the dentist wants to remove it and it's partner (the wisdom teeth.) However, the surgeon told the dentist to do no work on the teeth until 6 months have passed (June.) I had no problem with this at the time, because the tooth wasn't bothering me at the time. However, it has started bothering me. I believe that the congestion (maybe from allergies) has been aggravating the tooth, so I am taking generic Zyrtec. I've also been rinsing it with Listerine dental rinse with Hydrogen Peroxide (8%) and taking tylenol. So far, it hasn't been too bad.
Anyway, the surgeon says that I can go ahead with the extractions if I have to, but that I should put it off as long as possible. He reminded me to take anti-boitics before, during and after, but he did not mention the blood thinners.
Then, he started telling me that both he and the cardiologist are very interested in my case. Apparently, "Tets" don't usually dissect, and my case might actually be unique. They are interested in finding out why I dissected, and he is thinking about writing my case up for the journals. Apparently, my surgeon is a really big deal in the world of heart surgeons. He actually developed the procedure that he used to work on me.
I have a whole lot of other stuff I could talk about, but I don't feel like it. Some blogger, huh?

No real news to report

I am, of course, still at my sister's house, and things are going fairly well. The wound on my butt is getting smaller, but it will still be some time before it is completely healed. My right foot is still in a weakened state, and it will, I fear, be some time before I have full use of it. My left shoulder still bothers me but that is an unrelated and much older issue.
Tomorrow I have an appointment to get a chest x-ray in preperation for a doctor's appointment next week. I am hoping that we can get to the condo to check the mail and the state of my car. My nephew passed his driver's test today, and I am thinking I will let him use my car until I get permission to drive again.
In other news, I spoke to my brother last night. He was saying that they did a CAT-Scan on his wife, who was battling breast cancer for the second time, from just below her chin to her knees. They found no trace of the cancer, so that is certainly good news.

Where the he!! have I been?

I lost the USB chord for my camera, so I can't upload the pics of my scar or the bedsore - and honestly, I wouldn't do that anyway - but they would be perfect illustrations for this post. Those of you who know me will already know most or all of this stuff, so you can skip this if you are squeamish.
On 6 January, at about 4 in the morning, I was online with a friend of mine chatting away, when I was suddenly hit by the nastiest toothache I ever experienced. This was soon followed by the total cessation of feeling and function from my right leg. Needless to say, I was perfectly willing at that point to give in to my friends sugggestion that I call 911 immediately.
Once the EMTs arrived, I explained what was going on to them, and when I told them that I had been born with a heart condition called Tetralogy of Fallot, they got particularly excited. After being rushed to the emergency room, I was choppered to the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania. That was the last thing I remembered for about two weeks.
Of course, I was under some serious anaesthesia during that time, so I can describe for you fairly clearly where I THOUGHT I was. In my mind, I was incognito in some hospital in either Germany or England. My mission was to stay put and NOT let anyone find out who I was. Of course, my cover was blown by the appearance of my sister and niece. After that, I had a hard time figuring out what country I actually was in. I was thinking maybe Columbia, and I thought it odd when my other sister came to visit that she was talking to the nurse about catching the train home. I couln't figure out why she wouldn't simply rent a room somewhere for the night.
Anyway, the truth was that I had suffered an Acute Type A aortic dissection with right lower extremity malprefusion. (Copied directly from hospital release form) Basically, I was told that my heart was splitting in half, and the split continued down to my leg.
When I was 10 years old, I had had open-heart surgery to repair some holes in my heart, that I had been born with. This was the Tetralogy of Fallot. According to the surgeon, who performed the 9 hour emergency surgery that saved my life last month, the scar tissue left by that 1970 operation was what saved my life, by keeping the blood in place.
So to make a long story somewhat less long, I was under sedation for about a week and a half, then in ICU for a few days, at the cardiology wing for a week or so, then in a Rehabilitation Hospital for about 10 days. Now, I am at my sister's house for a while, before they let me go home. I am okay with that for a few reasons, but I really do want to get home.
We have had some MAJOR snow storms this week, and I still have the wound on my butt to contend with, so it is just as well I am here for a bit. I can't drive, and my piano is for shit.

Religion or no?

I really want to know... what is the problem? Why is there so much animosity between those who believe this, that or the other thing, and those who do not?
Yes, I am an atheist, and yes I would very much like it if those around me stopped believing on those gods and churches they do? I say "gods" because, in the case of catholic christianity for example, I do choose to see god, Jesus and the holy spirit as three separate entities. For the record, I capitalize the name Jesus because I see that as a name. "God" and "holy spirit" are in my mind titles, and not necessarily proper nouns.
Anyway - why do I care what religious people believe? Why does it bother me that my family had to wait for me to sit down in order to carry on with their prayer at thanksgiving dinner? Yes, it bothers me a great deal when people tell me that I should say, "Merry Christmas" rather than "Happy Holidays." I personally find this attitude to be offensive.
While I am talking about christians here, I would like you to understand that my remarks are also about persons and groups belonging to most other faiths as well. It is merely that christians seem to be the most vocal group in the United States, and in the media. I generally hear very little of Jewish opinion and Muslim opinion on these matters. While I know that Jews and Muslims do have an opinion on these matters, I cannot really speak to persons whose attitudes I am not familiar with.
There is a great campaign in the political right that is based on the belief that there is a war on christmas. The very idea seems insane to me. I agree with every secular humanist and every atheist who wants to see religious displays removed from government sites, including state houses, courtrooms, federal office buildings and schools. I believe that there is a very bug difference between wanting the government to cease honoring any god at all, and asking individuals to cater their own expressions of faith, or their own manner of worship, praise and celebration. No one that I know of wants to stop anyone from praying, or even congregating for religious purposes. No atheist that I know of cares if you want to praise Jesus, light candles in honor of Hanukkah, or if you want to prostrate yourself while facing Mecca at a certain time of the day.
I certainly don't care about these things. I never have. Nevertheless, I do care when the government sponsors or hosts this type of activity. This seems like preferential behavior, and whether the religious recognize this or not, I think allowing these behaviors in what are not private or religious settings is a form of pressure, especially in schools. Children are impressionable, and I don't know that anyone will deny that. To allow religious activities to become routine in a classroom is a form of social pressure. I think this is true for many people when it happens in the classroom.
There is a movement in some places to have non-religious displays placed next to religious displays in government locations during religious times. I do not think this is really wise, either. I think that the religious displays should be removed, but I also think that having atheist displays placed there for the holidays next to the religious ones is a shallow compromise.
But this is just my opinion.
On the other side of the question, I can't really comment much, but I can state what it seems to me that others are thinking and feeling.
It seems to me that some christians are offended by atheist placards in the state house, and by signs and billboards saying that some people do not believe in god. They [the christians] seem to think that simply saying, "If you do not believe in god, you are not alone" is an affront to them and an attack on them. They [the christians] seem to think that implying that people can be good without believing is god is an affront and an attack. I do not understand this attitude.
It seems to me that christians want to keep a power in this country that they sort of had in the past, but didn't really. It is largely religious groups who have led the charge against stem cell research, the teaching of evolution, the Arts, women's productive rights, gay rights at every stage, climate-change related regulation, and a plethora of other issues. Of course I recognize that it is not all religious persons who do this, and indeed not even all christians. Many religious people of all stripes are on both sides of every issue, regardless of how vocal they might be.
That being said, I really just want to find out why. In several churches that I have had the pleasure and honor of being involved with, there is a clearly stated movement to encourage others to say Merry Christmas rather than, "Have a nice holiday!" I hear this from many people every year.
In my mind, this is nothing more than an attempt to force other people to support your own religious views. Atheists don't do this. They will argue with facts, and data, and experiments, and logic to support their opinions, but they do not try to stop anyone from disagreeing. We may try to get people to defend their beliefs with facts and evidence, but that is in part because people are trying to get us to belief in what seems like nonsense without any evidence.
And by evidence we do not mean revelation (people have used that with me personally, so don't pretend it doesn't happen,) nor do we mean testimony. We mean evidence - repeatable and verifiable.