All you perverts need to migrate to Atlanta the weekend of 17th of March. The last OFFICIAL Fantasm (a sexually oriented sci-fi convention -- bring no children!) ist be held that weekend. It is a four day event of unbridled fetishism and fun. The room parties last year were eye-popping ("oral sex room") and wehope to send off the name with a flourish. They have classes on BDSM techniques (needle zippers, anyone?) and a playroom with suspended rope bondage (yes!)
Other than a participant, I am in no way connected with this endeavor financially, but when you have people chocolate pudding wrestling in the open airway and pony-girls prancing through the lobby while Wiccans gather at a fountain nearby to sanctify the place, and then the drumming group starts up and the Celts in kilts gather to stomp, you know it's gonna be a fun night!
Find more at www.Fantasm.org
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Influenza and the Emergency Department
Warning, highly individual opinion to follow (typed in at 0400 in the morning after three weeks of this!)
DON'T GO TO THE ER!
Okay, maybe I'm just joking, but only a little. Unless you are truly dying (and not just thinking you are) do not go to the ED (Emergency Department.) Number one, we can't get to you; number two, if you don't have the flu, you will after sitting there for hours waiting to be seen, surrounded by sufferers of the flu. Even face masks provide scant protection in the crowded waiting room.
In the area where I work (seven hospitals around here) most of the ED's are in gridlock. We can't move patients to the floors because they are full or have reduced staffing due to the nationwide nursing shortage; since we can't free up the beds in the ED, we are reduced to seeing a handful of patients at a time on the hall stretchers, in between the usual number of codes (dying or dead people) and car accidents and nursing home transfers, etc. This overloads the already overworked nurses (no, I'm not a nurse) who are dealing with inpatients that shouldn't be there, as well as the acutely ill. I know you feel like a walking corpse -- I've had influenza before myself -- but, unless you have some serious complication or underlying condition, you'll survive. Save yourself hours (around here 8-10 hour waits are routine these last few weeks) of misery and exposure to other contagions and stay home.
Call your boss, tell him the situation. Sending employees to the ED regularly to get work excuses during a flu season is cruel, unnecessary, and expensive (adding to the company cost of healthcare, remind her.) Going to work sick is not loyal, it's stupid. You'll make everyone else ill and the company will lose still more work time. Stay home, drink those fluids, dose yourself with ibuprofen or acetaminophen (if the fever returns before it's time for more acetaminophen, alternate between the two -- ibuprofen's better for the achiness anyway), get some soup into you, wash your hands religiously, and avoid contaminating the other members of your family or tribe. Nyquil really does help (just remember it has acetaminophen in it.) If you have a family doctor, they may be able to call something in for you.
If you develope more serious symtoms -- a cough with yellow or green phlegm production, chest pain, severe shortness of breath, or vomiting and unable to keep down fluids, certainly you may need to brave the crowds. But, bring a novel.
DON'T GO TO THE ER!
Okay, maybe I'm just joking, but only a little. Unless you are truly dying (and not just thinking you are) do not go to the ED (Emergency Department.) Number one, we can't get to you; number two, if you don't have the flu, you will after sitting there for hours waiting to be seen, surrounded by sufferers of the flu. Even face masks provide scant protection in the crowded waiting room.
In the area where I work (seven hospitals around here) most of the ED's are in gridlock. We can't move patients to the floors because they are full or have reduced staffing due to the nationwide nursing shortage; since we can't free up the beds in the ED, we are reduced to seeing a handful of patients at a time on the hall stretchers, in between the usual number of codes (dying or dead people) and car accidents and nursing home transfers, etc. This overloads the already overworked nurses (no, I'm not a nurse) who are dealing with inpatients that shouldn't be there, as well as the acutely ill. I know you feel like a walking corpse -- I've had influenza before myself -- but, unless you have some serious complication or underlying condition, you'll survive. Save yourself hours (around here 8-10 hour waits are routine these last few weeks) of misery and exposure to other contagions and stay home.
Call your boss, tell him the situation. Sending employees to the ED regularly to get work excuses during a flu season is cruel, unnecessary, and expensive (adding to the company cost of healthcare, remind her.) Going to work sick is not loyal, it's stupid. You'll make everyone else ill and the company will lose still more work time. Stay home, drink those fluids, dose yourself with ibuprofen or acetaminophen (if the fever returns before it's time for more acetaminophen, alternate between the two -- ibuprofen's better for the achiness anyway), get some soup into you, wash your hands religiously, and avoid contaminating the other members of your family or tribe. Nyquil really does help (just remember it has acetaminophen in it.) If you have a family doctor, they may be able to call something in for you.
If you develope more serious symtoms -- a cough with yellow or green phlegm production, chest pain, severe shortness of breath, or vomiting and unable to keep down fluids, certainly you may need to brave the crowds. But, bring a novel.
Friday, February 04, 2005
Snowboarding West Virginia
Just back from a snowboarding trip (finally -- was afraid I'd lose the knack) at Snowshoe Mtn, WV. There had just been a big blizzard when we arrived on Sunday the 23 January with wind blowing forty and the temperature about 0 F. It stayed cold the next day, too cold for two exhausted and middle-aged people who hadn't rested well the night before. It wasn't the accomodations (Highland House was great) but rather a combination of my coming off night shifts, the long drive, the bone-aching cold (hey, even kinky people get arthitis) and the fact that the snow plows started moving the accumulated snow about, oh, 0400! We were in one of the primo lodges and couldn't sleep late on any of our vacation due to the overzealous snowplowing.
But, we had a great time on the second day when we actually got out in that snow -- light and fluffy and powdery and soft. He took off on the skis like he'd been skiing all his life instead of last seeing slopes (if they can be called that in OH) back in the early 80's. I was stiff and scared for the first 60 minutes back on the board, then finally stopped trying to "think" my way down the hill and just started letting myself feel it -- letting go. This loss of control has always been my key to enjoying any physical experience. First I fight it, trying to intellectualize the experience, sort it, catalog it, monitor it, but to truly enjoy hanggliding, surfing, skiing, snowboarding, sex, I have had to learn to let go and just ride the sensation. Turn off my left brain.
Letting go is more difficult than many "natural" athletes realize. Those of us engineering types spend all of our life in our left brains, naming and identifying and cataloging, but only rarely allowing the non-verbal side of our brains to take over and just feel. We keep tripping up our feet by thinking too much about the dance steps.
So, after floundering about and getting frustrated with my physical self, I decided to turn off the brain. Worked wonderfully and my lover was even impressed with my grace on the board. As he pointed out, most of the really flying boarders were half my age and male, with a handful of female boarders mixed in (mind you we were only on the green and blue slopes) but none of them were anywhere near my age. It made me feel less judgemental of myself to hear that and to relax and just laugh the few times I plowed down a slope. Laughing reminds me that this is all just a game and the only one I'm really competing with is myself. No one lives or dies (except maybe me) based on my ability or inability to board with the big boys. It's purely recreation, a change from my usual job.
But, we had a great time on the second day when we actually got out in that snow -- light and fluffy and powdery and soft. He took off on the skis like he'd been skiing all his life instead of last seeing slopes (if they can be called that in OH) back in the early 80's. I was stiff and scared for the first 60 minutes back on the board, then finally stopped trying to "think" my way down the hill and just started letting myself feel it -- letting go. This loss of control has always been my key to enjoying any physical experience. First I fight it, trying to intellectualize the experience, sort it, catalog it, monitor it, but to truly enjoy hanggliding, surfing, skiing, snowboarding, sex, I have had to learn to let go and just ride the sensation. Turn off my left brain.
Letting go is more difficult than many "natural" athletes realize. Those of us engineering types spend all of our life in our left brains, naming and identifying and cataloging, but only rarely allowing the non-verbal side of our brains to take over and just feel. We keep tripping up our feet by thinking too much about the dance steps.
So, after floundering about and getting frustrated with my physical self, I decided to turn off the brain. Worked wonderfully and my lover was even impressed with my grace on the board. As he pointed out, most of the really flying boarders were half my age and male, with a handful of female boarders mixed in (mind you we were only on the green and blue slopes) but none of them were anywhere near my age. It made me feel less judgemental of myself to hear that and to relax and just laugh the few times I plowed down a slope. Laughing reminds me that this is all just a game and the only one I'm really competing with is myself. No one lives or dies (except maybe me) based on my ability or inability to board with the big boys. It's purely recreation, a change from my usual job.
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