Cover your damn mouth.

Awesome old Starbucks mosaic coffee travel tumbler :)

My friend, who works at a thrift store (to be distinguished from my thrift store friends, an entirely different category), has had an unfortunate number of encounters with fecal matter in her work. From people pooping in dressing rooms, to finding poop in donated clothing, working at a thrift store is a neverending battle with possible disease and the ever-present possibility of upchucking.

I've experienced vomiting children several times. There's nothing like walking into a thrift store, and smelling vomit. Lately, I've been on high alert for coughing children, the ultimate disease carriers. I'm trying to avoid the flu, and every time I see a child coughing, I immediately feel afraid and try to avoid them. And unfortunately, there are a lot of sick people around these parts. When I went out into the country last week, there were signs everywhere warning of a scabies outbreak.

I don't think of myself as a germaphobe, but I think I might be becoming more aware of how susceptible I am to illness, and how important it is for me to protect myself from infection, viruses, etc.

Anyhoo, hope you weren't eating just now :)

Physical urges.

The ultimate question - "Is it suede?"

I've been sick all weekend, and it's made me kinda crazy. It's also completely taken away any kind of verbal filter I usually have, so I'm saying "fuck shit" whenever something doesn't go my way, which is about every five minutes.

So, I've talked about want before, want in the sense of a physical urge, a primal thing that gets fed when we're young so when we get to adulthood, we understand the process. And the over-consumption of modern wherever is probably some sort of psychological commentary on our ability as a society to effectively cope with that wanting mechanism inside of us.

Well, my want mechanism was extinguished early, so now when I want, I question feelings of want incessantly. If I want something, I try to figure out why, and if I should want it, and what it means that I do/might want it. The whole process is ridiculous, because most people just want something and then they go and get it. But I want something, and then end up cutting myself bangs or professing my undying love to one of several people. Want makes me a crazy delusional person. It makes me illogical.

All of this has to do with sex. So, yeah.

What I won't buy

I buy food from discard food stores that look like they should be shut down. This includes vitamins, coffee, tampons (which I've recently given up completely), and cereal.

I always buy used shoes and clothing. I recently bought a new container of baby powder. I buy bras, but not in bad condition, and I NEVER buy underwear. I really went through it a couple years back trying to figure out how to solve the "underwear in thrift stores" problem, but to no avail.

I buy swimsuits that do not appear to be used. I buy stuffed animals very rarely if they're vintage. Most of the thrift stores I go to are very happy to test items, or mark them as tested, so I would have no problem buying blenders or food processors.

Now I'm on a roll.

Rugs can be cleaned. Comforters can be cleaned. Let's reuse instead of buying new!

Also, I'm a big fan of cleaning products that don't hurt the earth, but clean the stuff I get at thrift stores, because I get a lot of stuff that needs cleaning, and it isn't worth the purchase if it can't be reused effectively, or if it's going to gross someone out or make someone sick.

My comment on a recent post from Thrift Core

Oh man, after I wrote this, I reread it, and realized how marginal I am. I love who I am, but in some ways, I worry about exposing these parts of myself to other people. I don't want people to be disgusted by me. But I also am very passionate about figuring out ways to use what is already available. I'm all about the dumpster diving, but I only do it for boxes, because I have an image to maintain for my real job and all. Also, I have an autoimmune disease, and I don't like to mess around with that. But I completely support it, and think everyone should do it.

Geysers are big.

Yellowstone postcards from 1931

Oh wow. I've gone off the deep end. I've lost track of the words that are coming out of my mouth, and my mouth has taken on a life of its own where it operates without the presence or direction of my brain. Bad times, my friends. I am in trouble.

Bipolar disorder runs in my family, and I have only ever run on the severely depressed side of the mood spectrum. I've been having a lot of different weirdness going on in my body, and I'm not feeling like all is well, or as it should be. Tomorrow is a holiday, and I work all day on Tuesday, but I'm calling my psychiatrist as soon as I can. Whatever is happening is abnormal and not at all okay. Maybe it's nothing; maybe it's just a ton of anxiety, but I am not going to let it continue.

That being said, if you have any kind of mental health issues/diseases/conditions, please know that there are always people willing to hear you. Whether it's a suicide hotline, or a teen crisis line, or a domestic violence hotline, people want to help you. Sometimes all we need to do is reach out from the frenzied clutter of our brains and tell other people that we need help, and we gain a new chance at freedom. So I'm gonna do that, before things get worse, while I still have a chance of turning this train around.

Universal health care is for commies.

 

Megan: "I would like to refill a prescription."

Pharmacy: "Oh, that seems like a normal request. Let us take care of that for you."

Insurance Company: "We do not believe that this person requires this prescription."

Pharmacy: "Oh, okay...Hey, Megan, the insurance company won't cover the prescription you've been receiving for the past ten years. They need more information about the status of your need for this prescription."

Megan: "It's for test strips, you know, for my chronic diabetes. I get them all the freakin' time."

Pharmacy: "We'll have to get back to you. In the meantime, try not to die."

"The Hunger Games"

 

In an attempt to avoid spending the evening staring at my bedroom ceiling, I went to see The Hunger Games with my friend and her eldest son.

I haven't read the books, for a couple reasons. The first time I heard about the series, and asked about the premise, I was horrified. Later, I spoke about the books with a different friend, and discovered the philosophical nature of the series. Sufficiently impressed, I decided to read the books over the summer during my decadent book-reading marathon which will commence soon after graduation (Obviously only after I've sobered up and begun sleeping in my own bed again--Ha! As if).

The movie was wonderful, and powerful, and disturbing. The crowd was awful, and horrible, and emotionally disabled. They laughed when they should have cried. I wept all the way home. I wept for our world, where violence is normal, and a brilliant concept like Hunger Games is misunderstood by the masses as some kind of thriller series.

I am saddened by the state of our world, where a film whose cinematography gave me a migraine could draw such delighted crowds, and so many mothers with children. I feel like I should take off all my clothes, cover myself in ashes, and shave my head. I feel like nothing I ever do is sufficient. There will never be enough. The beast of greed is insatiable.

"Natural" remedies

In honor of being sick, I give you a list of herbal remedies I use obsessively:

1. Crushed garlic (severe cold/flu)
2. Warm Garlic/Olive Oil blend (ear infection)
3. Goldenseal/Echinacea (moderate cold/flu)
4. Vitamin C (mild cold/flu)
5. Cranberry capsules (urinary anything)

When I was trying to cure myself of diabetes, and wasn't taking any meds, I used:

1. Cinnamon
2. Prickly Pear Cactus
3. Chromium
4. Taurine

On a normal day, I take the following (vegan overload):

1. Vitamin B Complex
2. Prenatal Multivitamin (for the extra iron)

A funny morning

I really needed lip gloss today. It was freezing, and when I looked in the mirror late morning, my lips were white. I already have light skin, so when I'm cold, my face kinda disappears. Not good.

There was a somewhat-nearby thrift store that usually has makeup with damaged packaging, so I went there, but there was nothing resembling lip gloss. At this point, I had low blood sugar and needed to drive across town, so I figured I'd go somewhere where I could find both orange juice and lip gloss. I only had enough time for one stop before my next appointment.

I found the solution to both of my problems at Big Lots: Fun bright lip gloss in a tube, and a gross package of raisins that I opened and started eating while standing in line. A kid in a shopping cart whining for candy watched wide-eyed as I literally stuffed my mouth with raisins.

Unfortunately, I am a stickler when it comes to fixing low blood sugar. I feel like I can't use it as an opportunity to eat crap, so sometimes I get frantic combing aisles for the healthiest sugar option. Add frantic combing for lip gloss (there was a cute guy involved), and you have a funny morning.

World AIDS Day

 

AIDS is so huge, and hidden, that we often forget how real it still is, that people are still suffering and dying, that whole countries in Africa are essentially being run by an orphaned generation.

Please don't choose to be apathetic and helpless today. Please do something.

As I focus my own advocacy and support towards Mennonite Central Committee, I will point you in that direction. If you already have something in mind, please comment on this post. I would love to hear what you do to honor those who suffer, who have died, who have lost, and who struggle each day to fight against oppression and racism and indifference and ignorance to fight the evil of HIV/AIDS. Please know that the most populated countries in the world are those most at risk for total devastation (e.g. India & China).

Please don't give up on caring. It hurts, and it's difficult, but it also makes you human.