Beth plays ‘Whack a Mole’ & the Thanksgiving surprise

I went up to Boxing yesterday a bit blue. But nothing like doing heavy bag for 20 minutes or more to get the endorphins going. I developed a six punch combo for both hands, a sixteen punch combo and a 52 punch combo (this will be my secret weapon, like in the films when the coach goes, “She's turning it around, look, look: she’s doing the 52 punch combo!” And then my opponent falls unconscious to the floor – except I am a pacifist, just not a very convincing one).

I did bouts with a) a male kickboxer, b) a girl scared to hit me, so I had her practice hitting my head. Linda is watching me type this and just shouted: “She was a QUICK learner!” and c) R., a woman with the hardest, leanest arm muscles of anyone I have boxed who gave me a very good hook, and while trying to help her in practice of a single block and jab move, she misunderstood and stepped in to give me a full roundhouse to the head. Oh did I hear bells. I seriously think she would have broken my nose if she hit lower.
Good news is that I have better memory today. I just keep tipping over and slurring my words. But I laugh a lot, which is good. Coach Ian kept yelling at me to breathe (by which he means, ‘take a five second break’), and at one point jumped in front of me yelling ‘BREATH’. My muddled mind thought, “Do I try to hit Ian while he ducks?" And kept working on my combinations, until he grabbed my hands. “Breathe”

Ian: “You aren’t doing 12 rounds you know.”

Me: “No. So Ian, can you prepare me for a 20 round bout?”

Ian: “Some guys only do ONE bout.”

Me: “How about 45 rounds, like the Canadian that beat Jack Johnson in Cuba?!”

Ian: “Hey, where is your oxygen?”

So that was boxing. It hurt last night. I had funny dreams and moaned a lot.

Today I went to the library and wheeled home, so that I do not get slothful. Because that’s me, right, slothful.

Then came the Thanksgiving Surprise: Someone came over and dropped off this a few minutes ago, which wasn’t from them, we don’t know who it is from. But thank you.
This holds: Turkey Breast, buns, Coleslaw, wine, apple sparkling drink, instant mashed potatoes, gravy mix, can beans, can peas, can corn, cranberry sauce, taffy, chocolate, MINT GIRL SCOUT COOKIES, hot chocolate and apple pie.

That’s a whole Thanksgiving feast.
I started crying writing that list, because the idea that someone I never met could care so much about us, so that we could have a thanksgiving dinner. It is everything I wanted to believe in people: amazing, kind and generous.

There is a friend, a guy in the building who can’t get around because he is waiting on the same health system to see if they will give him a heart operation or just let him die, him and his two bachelor boys. So we are going to invite them up to have thanksgiving dinner with us. Because caring should beget caring, I think. So somehow, for those who have no thanksgiving plans, and we know all the people with disabilities here, we will try to have a real family dinner.

I did not think I asked for help, because stuff is what it is, and I know that a lot of people are going through sucky times right now. We paid for our computer repairs with snacks (rice crispy squares) and small gifts, and he said, “Next time it will have to be money.” Yeah, but right now, I have a computer and as much as I love the soup I’ve been having the last couple days, having something other than soup sounds pretty good.

Thanks to everyone who gave a thanksgiving surprise, we will try to pass it on. I wish I could have you all over. But we got excited at this tangible food in front of us because – someone came to our door…and there was food. So we were like, 'let's take a picture!' That’s cool. I was so happy, I lost balance and fell against the wall. Next time, less ‘whack a Beth’ at boxing I think.

Wheelchair Boxing Round 3: is this tenacious?

Free from the ‘51’ (the 51 days of fever), and the fever and chills from Tuesday, I went to Boxing on Friday. I am thin...in places. I have ribs showing, am sitting on pure pelvic bones but have a pot and little tire and not quite sure how that happens (lying there for 51 days might have something to do with it).

It annoys me.

Things that annoy me get removed. Turn on the vacuum cleaners, and hand me the scissors: time for my home liposuction!

I have pushing myself hard since the fever, trying to get reserves, but working every hour. I have had some problems with high blood pressure and seizures, and the fever make things explode literally. Due to my camera being a ‘smart camera’ which tries to match skin tones, this bruise is about half as dark and just plain disturbing as the picture shows. There is another rupture showing up in the pinky, it starts in the crease and goes up half of the pinky. As you can see with this picture, I bleed every day, expanding territory of this particular bruise, and that is only the part you can see on the skin. When I overheat and blood comes to the surface, it gets gigantic. It seems like my body is playing a game of Risk, and slowly winning territory. This is called subcutaneous bleeding, I think. I did not hit anything, this bruise along with about 30 more visible ones, are just ruptures of my arteries from high, high blood pressure.

This is what dying looks like. I wasn’t going to take pictures of the things we now see, except that people who read the blog are so used to me ‘dying’ that the idea the ride is about over, and going to come to a complete stop, is alien. No, I am not an alien, or a sub-human that just keeps going regardless. I could die today, I already came close. My arms twitch constantly so it is hard to type. There is no ‘after Xmas’, or ‘Next year’ or ‘This Fall’ in the thoughts of Linda and I. Yeah, it might be wonderful, you think, to look worse than an infected junkie, and have the pain of having nails driven into your bones, and just go on like this. But human bodies don’t. They tend to generate what are known as ‘loopbacks’ which is the body saying “Help” but, for someone who can’t feel, only generates TIA inducing spontaneous high blood pressure.

I would love a long term gig but right now, no treatment, no doctor, and a hospital would likely kill me in short order (when they make ASSUMPTIONS, and my body works the opposite, that is a BAD thing), that isn’t happening. Sure, I have to live as if I keep on living, because I am not sitting here waiting to fall over. But I am fighting to get back each freedom in the same way I went to the fencing tournament AFTER I knew it might kill me: I want one more spin on the merry-go-round. I want one more 10K, one more Sakura-con (see Linda on how that is going), and with about 600 more postcards I get 5,000. That’s a good number, right? Yeah, the shop is shutting down, whether I want it to or not.

I am not a Goth, I AM GOTH. And no one is riding shotgun with me.

So, after seeing Sherlock Holmes and a few hours of sleep I went up to boxing. I went up because a) I need to lose that pot before Sakura-con (vanity, vanity!) b) I want to be as elite an athlete as I can be for my condition because I believe that will extend my life – even if that is 1/10 of what my condition was in August or Oct. last year. And c) I really want to go out of this life hitting and fighting DAMMIT! I want to be a wheelchair boxer again.

I managed to show up on ‘do sit ups, push ups and heavy bag until you vomit’ night. All right! We did 12 series of combo’s on the heavy bag before doing tight hitting as fast as you could and then strong blows are hard as you could. I couldn’t type afterward – I just needed to lie down and have body twitching.

When I started I felt FAT, but when I finished I felt better, not just because with eating only one meal a day, but I am on bone in my pelvis. But my arms still seem to work, and I was able to sweat, enough to maybe stop my hair from falling out. Enough to stop the skin peeling off of my face.

Linda said, of those there, I was putting the most into it, but then, I do. Ian held my heavy bag and surveyed the room while I worked on uppercuts, shovel hooks, overhead hooks, and power rights. I knew I would be in pain, since last time I was unable to sleep due to the pain from boxing. This time I managed to get four hours sleep (only to find out that due to working SLOWLY every day, the construction will now continue into Saturday – six days a week, starting TODAY until Xmas). I know that I will never be able to look out my window again. That is what is. I have wall scrolls to watch and DVD’s I play to cover up the construction noise.

The trick of making combination is to totally relax between the combinations, like letting your mind go into strategic mode, so you breath, relax. Then you take the power from the relaxed muscles and accelerate them to culminate into a point in time and space – WHAM, wham, WHAM, and relax with your guard up. It takes a half second to make three hits.

Ian is the right type of temperament for me. I told him, “You are doing 40lb jabs” while I was holding the heavy bag (throwing around boxes of books, the 80 pounds of books versus the 40 becomes memorized). He told me he could barely use his shoulders: jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, cross, power hook. “I did two killer workouts yesterday.” He said, “Why do I hit so hard when I am so tired?” jab, jab, cross, jab, back step, step into hook, triple jab and a rocking cross. He laughs, “Because I like it.”

Afterward I apologized for not coming due to the fever. For Ian, who knows me, it is not a big deal, two of his students, new ones overheard me and one said, “Oh my God! Did you go to the hospital?” Ian and I looked at each other like, “Newbies!” He knows this rocket is pointed toward the sun.

He had parasites from a trip overseas, as is working them out. I told him I will be back regularly I hope as I get ready for Sakura-con and the 10K. “You are the most tenacious human being I have ever met.” He suddenly said to me. I wasn’t sure what to say.

Ian has had about 75 bouts with I think 5 defeats. He came out of retirement in his mid-30’s to do a boxing tournament that required FOUR back to back full on bouts, which means you had to win all four in a row. He was at the final bout when a ref called a holding, and a stop, he lowered his glove, while the other boxer put all his weight behind a hit to his cheek, crushing his cheekbone and pressing his eyeball out. Ian went on to knock out that man and win the tournament. But, he said, it taught him that he was too trusting, and it was time to retire. And he calls ME the most tenacious human being he has ever met? Of all the boxers? Of looking himself in the mirror?

I want to live up to that.
Someone recently sent me an email saying they wrote so that I won’t be lonely. I write because I am lonely.

I want so much for this blog to go back to jaunty and saucy and research and observation of BEFORE, and I hope it will. Because all of that is a part of who I am. But so are the things which no one talks about, that shadow which falls over everything I look at, over everything good in my life. I live because I need to live each day as if I were to keep on living. But I also need to have a part of each day in preparation for dying. Except there isn’t any way to teach me how to do that. Linda has 3 support meetings in the next 10 days. I will meet a therapist for the first time, a meet and greet – they are accessible, so they are only available every three weeks. And what do the living, who observe and writing ‘stages’ know of this. What do they know of having what limited support group die, one after the other.

One told me, “Just because they say you are going to die, doesn’t mean you will.” Dead.

“Morbid wit, I like it.” Dead.

Another taught me how to keep blogging. He was the most obvious, slurred, even on the blog, so we brushed by, as I was full of symptoms and possible conditions, and that he could be me soon, it terrified, and he died soon after.

So boxing and being in pain and watching blood pool from parts of me is easy. Wham, wham WHAM! THAT is nothing. Letting someone in, knowing I won’t be there for them, and seeing them watch me with terrified eyes, how do I do that?

Lesbian vampire girls in corsets suck face, blood, hickeys and drinks

Ahh yes, it was uplifted breasts and desire. Like I said I can do an hour a week or so, and this week, it is corsets and getting dressed up, going out on the town and spreading my wings, literally. Of course, with a recent medical report of anemia I needed to get a transfusion. Who says that it has to be painful? First I put Linda in a thrall of desire. Then I went for the blood and the velvet covered boobies. Linda is doing her, “Nice but I hope you finish this before the drinks get here..” not quite going with the whole moment...yet.

You can see an elderly couple behind us. One can only wonder what they were thinking, luckily I overheard what they were saying (remember I had a fever, and not just blood fever, so I may be a wee off).

Guy: “What IS that girl doing to the other in public?”

Woman: “Oh don’t notice them, those are just a couple of lesbian vampires. Or is it one vampire and her lesbian lover, I can never get that straight.”

Guy: “(Huff) Well, I never, I thought this was a respectable establishment.”

Women: “Oh Bill, get with the Millenium, I mean you didn’t mind the apartment Edith and I kept on the side.”

Guy raising his chin and getting stiff: “Well that was different, I mean it was the war and all…..Oh my twisted druthers, what are they doing now.”

Woman: “Stop staring Bill, is it just a little blood sucking, I don’t see how that is much different than the transfusions I get on Wednesday. They are obviously having a nice night out, just get back to your appetizer and let them have some fun before returning to the coffin."

Earlier I had gotten dressed up including using MAKE UP (Yes, I went lipstick lesbian, want to make an issue of it? On the bed? The floor? How about the in the whirlpool?), giving me the hopefully ‘cherry cordial chocolate kiss’ (nice on the outside but better to lick to the center) look.

But by this time our drinks had arrived. We found this place near us which has rockin’ drinks, big margaritas. They have a Hawaiian margarita (Cheryl had it) which tastes likes the Big Island tastes, the heat giving wafts of sweet pineapple and mango, the sweet honey, and the blue of the tide pools. Yum.

I have to admit that the lust was upon me, lesbian vampire that I am. I mean, earlier I was here, this poster girl for Big Sisters, I mean you would let this nice woman with her necklace of Morticia on Ivory, and black wings take your tween and teen out to an nice uplifting nighttime playtime? We could go walking in cemeteries, or if they were old enough we could watch films like...The Hunger (with David Bowie). But later, overcome with blood and unnamed lusts I have transformed. Not exactly the poster child for Big Sister now.

Linda and I came here earlier, notice the different corset and lace shrug.
We then found about the monster drinks on the weekend and destiny was created. Yes, I happen to be one of those people who find certain drinks to be aphrodisiacs, in a major way. I finally won Linda over to the moment, probably by saying something wildly inappropriate. I have always wanted to do that whole arm sweep to clear the table top and then leaping atop Linda, YUM. What? That is supposed to be done at home? Oh. Well I guess that is why I see it in movies and not often in restaurants. But Linda was giving me a glow. Yes, sex IS in the mind, and the partner, and booze, lots o booze helps too, who needs feeling below the sternum, right?

I think it best we finish with a nice innocent picture. See, this is me just being nice and cute. I do want to point out that for women, with the stress of Xmas and hosting, that masturbation is known to help with migraines, insomnia and stress. So PLEASE do yourself a favor and masturbate this Xmas season. That ends the public service announcement.

The last boxing class was this week until the new year. I have been having problems where I gain weight even though I eat one meal a day and work out like crazy, burn, literally with fever, and have a heart rate which indicates I am jogging. It is driving me crazy. But the lab results from this week might show some of the problem which is that I progressed some more in my anemia, lower Hemocrit, Red Blood Cells as well Hemoglobin PLUS even though on synthroid it looks at least part of me is dead. My free T4, which is what is used to turn food in the blood into energy instead of just storing it as fat, is below the limits, making me functionally hypothyroidism, so we are increasing the synthroid and seeing a doctor.

Beyond drinking alcohol and giving Linda hickeys, we also did postcards. Linda, Cheryl and I got together and got some postcards matched, stickered, stamped and finished, more than I thought as 48 finished postcards have already been posted. So the 38 from last week was even more, though it exhausted us a bit (a lot).

We had some nice donations, like these postcards. And here are pictures of HELL, yes, that is the gateway to Hell, or perhaps some OTHER ancient and famous institution, I can’t remember, but either way that is pretty goth. Also many vampires in this place, except like zombies, they feed on brains.

Also, after I sold the manga on ebay I was able to get some of the pictures and postcards I had found in Hawaii (I got them in the Thanksgiving sale - free shipping!), that includes this picture of the woman doing ‘the dance of the turtle’ – whew, fan me down, I am having that heat issue again. Or as Linda says, “She looks very…uh…fit and LIMBER.” Oh yeah!

“Are you LIMBER?” I asked Linda since she takes all these fitness courses at work and can do these positions with odd names like ‘the plank’ or ‘the seal’ and I thought it time to have a home work out, as it were. Um, yes, postcards, keep the focus! So here is the arctic fox and the dance of the turtle. We also did themes of books and asia/Japan, sometimes we did they together. Without Linda and Cheryl there is no way I would be able to do all the matching, stamping and stickering I do; there wouldn’t be a postcard project. Yes, I do a lot, and I write each one, source, buy and organize postcards, stickers and the rest but also we get great gifts from around the world to the postcard project (I am not the postcard project, I am the horny vampire – so gifts to the postcard project are ones I sort and use but are separate to me). Right now the project is at about 3,480 or so (2000 for the year about).

I had ordered a month or so ago some new year cards from Japan, as during new year people send each other new year greetings in postcards. And the postcards are all stamped with numbers and then on New Year’s Day the TV station reads which numbers wins gifts, from toasters and cell phones, to Playstations, Rice Cookers, and Cars. So not only does it pay to send lots of postcards (and GET lots of postcards) because then someone among you and your friends will win a prize (this is after coming back from a shrine to put in money, clap two/three times and make a prayer, then write a wish on paper and tie it to the nearby tree - New Years Visit). I wish I could do the same (the prizes, feel free to write wishes and tie them to trees), but I am not a national government. But I was able to send out about 18-20 new year postcards, most for this year directly from Japan. However, because they are not ‘franked’ (stamped) by the Japanese Postal System, you can’t win a prize beyond the postcard. Sorry.

And that was my weekend. Cool, yeah?