September 30, 2002
Obviously, I'm changing things around here. Please let me know if you see any glaring mistakes, or any minor mistakes for that matter.
In the meantime, check out this "Best Of" list from the New York Press. Yeah, I know, its a long list, so let me point out the funny things. "Best Put-Down of Rock Critics" and "Best Bushism" are humorous. For "Best Website" they wrote up Ebay. I love ebay, but I had to go cold turkey a few months back. I had filled my house with useless plastic toys, misfitted clothing and other useless tchotchkes that I spent WAY too much money on. However, I never considered the option of SELLING all this useless crap. I think the person who wrote the blurb said they pull in an extra $150 a month off of ebay. I live next to the post office too so it wouldn't be that big of a deal. Hmmm....Anyway, another site they wrote about, though I forget what it was "Best" of, was craigslist. I have never actually bought anything off of the site, but I think about it all the time.
"Best Guide for the Straight Homosexual" also funny. What is up anyway? Is this some sort of new "style" kinda thing? By "thing" I am referring to straight men who act gay. I am not talking about straight men who are somewhat effiminant or who are in touch with their female side, I am talking about men who radiate a vibe of "I like men" but who claim to be straight. Am I the only person running into these men?...which leads me back to my question...is like a "thing"? a trend? Is it a good sign that guys in general are now more comfortable expressing feelings that in the past they would have suppressed? Or is it a sign that some gay men are going back in the closet? Someone please enlighten me.
Also on the list Vice Magazine's Do's and Don'ts. A must read...they post them on their site too.
I went to Brigham and Woman's Hospital today and had an echocardiogram. Fun time for all. The guy that performed the test was named Brian and he looked like that guy from that movie SLC Punk & Scoobie Doo & Scream...He looks like he's always about to say "duuuuuuuuuude" ?I don't know his name, but its hard to take a guy that looks like that serious, so the entire time he was looking at my heart I was wondering what "Brian's" credentials were. I mean, he said his name was "Brian" not "Dr" Something, so obviously he's not an MD. Was he a nurse? A technician? What kind of degree do you need to do that kind of thing? And by "that kind of thing" I mean dip a large sonagram wand in some sort of lubricant and roll it all over my left breast. It alternated between painful and ticklish. I had to actually have him stop a few times because I was laughing so hard.. It was kind of cool to watch my heart on screen, but beyond that it was a very long forty five minutes.
September 21, 2002
So much craziness. Just got back from vacation. We went with my husband's family to Yosemite National Park, Carmel and then San Francisco. Then Jim and I parted ways with the rest of the posse and went and met some friends in Las Vegas. I had an amazing time.
See for yourself:
On Friday I went back to the Neurology Clinic at Mass General for a wrap-up appointment thinking they were gonna give me a few tests and then send me home with a "Nice to meet you...get in touch when you have your next episode." I have a new doctor...Autumn Klein. I really liked her. She said I had cute toes. Of course, she was poking them with a straight pin at the time, so maybe she was just trying to make me feel better about the whole thing. So I'm sitting there an hour later and the Doctor smiles at me and says, "Ok, I'm just going to go look over your MRI and then you can leave." She doesn't return for 45 minutes and when she does she has the head doctor guy with her. They decided the "seizure" diagnosis was wrong, that it was actually a TIA and that they need to look not only at my brain for some sort of clot or thinning of a vein or artery, but they also need to examine my heart. They scheduled me for seven more various tests during the next two weeks. It kind of scared me because they were so serious about everything and so insistent that everything had to be done NOW.
We have been shooting three new commercials at work that should be done next week. To be honest, they look great so far although I have only seen a full rough cut of one...The shoot took place for the two days right before I left on vacation. One of the commercials is for an MS organization called the Boston Cure Project. The organization was founded by Art Mellor. He's a funny guy and has a cool tatoo of an atom on his leg. He asked me and the other main participants in the project to pose for a picture for their newsletter. I walked up and Sean, the head grip guy, was like "Noreen, please don't manhandle or grope me!" In return I grabbed his ass...see we were kidding around right? So then he's like "Noreen, I told you to stop pushing out your breasts." We're both laughing. And in return, in a moment I regretted IMMEDIATELY, I stuck out my chest. Art snaps the picture. I'm like "Art, wait...you need to take a new one...I wasn't...it wasn't good...". And he's like "Oh, absolutely not. You are just going to save me from having to photoshop it myself."But he was completely serious. Like he wouldn't take another picture. So I go "whatever."...see, I don't care...and then I am walking back to go to the dressing room and I hear one of the grips ( a bunch of early-twenty-slacker-boy types) go, "um...hey man..is that digital?" and Arts like "yeah!" and goes over to show them the picture.
Next day, the topic of the picture came up and one of the boys goes "Oh, I know it was so disappointing... Didn't you see it?" No I didn't. "Well there's this huge shadow across your chest blocking out everything."
Someone from Art's office sent me a copy of the picture the other day and it just cracked me up.
September 3 , 2002
This morning I was re-reading an old copy of Chunklet for tips on how to play roulette.I am preparing for my trip to Vegas, so I gotta get my hustle on. Anyway, this piece of paper fell out of the book as I was reading. It was a playing sheet from the game Scattegories. On the back, in an almost illegible scrawl, was "josh@pukingzombies.com". I have a vague recollection of a "game night" at my house that involved both Scattegories and a karaoke cover of "Loving You" by CeCe Penniston that I may or may not have dueted with Josh on. Not that I know Josh. He was just at my house. The note spurred me to go to www.pukingzombies.com where I found these cool pics.
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That's Liz as "Lillith" who I think is the Zombie Queen (I saw the movie a year ago and am hazy on some details). And the other picture has Jersey fronting the fake band the "Turbo Sluts" with Anne in a purple wig on bass. Nice.
September 1 , 2002
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Last
Tuesday night I was getting ready for bed with Jim. He walked into
the bathroom and found me bent over at the waist, staring at the toilet
saying "I can't see the colors" then something like "I
feel weird". Jim thought I was kidding around and said "If
you're tired you should get in bed, Noreen." He saw me stagger
out of the room and when he followed me into the bedroom I had climbed
onto the end of the bed and was yelling his name. At this point I
had lost part of my vision and couldn't see Jim even though he was
standing next to me. After that my speech started to slur and I was
basically unintelligible for the next 20 minutes. Luckily enough,
I remember very little of this. I just remember feeling disoriented
and weak when I came out of it.
Long story longer, I just went to bed that night and then got up and went to work the next morning. I decided to pretend it all never happened. Later that day I broke down and emailed my friend Sarah, who just happens to be a neuro-psychologist (ok, I think I just made up that title, but its something like that. She's a doctor ok? And she knows brain stuff. That's all that matters in regards to this story). She advised that I get my ass to a hospital.
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I spent 12 hours in Emergency at Mass General. The good news is: the doctors looked at my brain and there was no damage done. The bad news is: they really had no diagnosis and, therefore they had no preventative advice for me.
The doctors said it sounded like I had had a minor stroke, otherwise known as a transient ischemic attack. "A transient ischemic attack, or minor stroke, is caused by a temporary state of reduced blood flow in a portion of the brain. This is most frequently caused by tiny blood clots that temporarily occlude a portion of the brain. A primary blood supply to the brain is through two arteries in the neck (the carotid arteries) that branch off within the brain to multiple arteries that supply specific areas of the brain." Symptoms can include: numbness or weakness in the face, arm, or leg, especially on one side of the body; confusion or difficulty in talking or understanding speech; trouble seeing in one or both eyes; and difficulty with walking, dizziness, or loss of balance and coordination. Alright, so the only problem with this diagnosis is that I do not have diabetis, I have low blood pressure, low cholestoral, I'm under 35, no heart disease, I exercise, etc. What I'm saying is there is nothing physically wrong with me that would lead to such an attack. So then they decided that instead it may have been a seizure that displayed stoke-like symptoms. But why would I have a seizure? Well it could be due to a medication I was on-Wellbutrin.
They told me to stop taking Wellbutrin immediately. Since I got home I researched the incident of seizure with Wellbutrin.Wellbutrin triggered seizures in 0.4 percent of those who took it -- four people per 1,000. That might not sound that high, but it was two to four times the seizure risk of other antidepressants. And I thought that was incredibly high. And they prescribe this to people to stop smoking! I am officially against the drug now.
Jim is still trying to work out kinks at his site www.perpetualdesign.net. Report any problems to Jim.
Sorority Life finale next week. Two comments about this weeks episode. 1) Some annonymous sister actually quoted Shirley McClaine at their weekly meeting. 2) Jordan has said "So I think that's, like, really mean!" about the sisters/the pledge process at least once a week. What is pledging a sorority supposed to be like?! I'm waiting for a real initiation rite...like paddling or something...not just talking behind each other's backs.
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