Susan's Scribblings the Blog

My prescription medication was a bit expensive, so when I went to see my doctor I asked, as my prescription provider recommended, that I be given a generic version of the drug I was taking.  Unfortunately there is none, partly because it’s a combo and not past its patent expiration date, I guess.  So he dutifully put me on the half of the drug that mattered, and in a slightly higher dose to make up for the missing half.

In a month, I’ve gained four pounds.

So what do I do, go back on the original drug and be four pounds lighter and broke, or try another change by adding a second drug to my medicine cabinet?

Awhile ago I wrote an open letter to McDonald’s asking them why they had not introduced their 1/3 pound Angus burgers to the general public instead of confining it to the New York test marketing area.  It’s finally here, and I’m glad that some requests do get answered.

On the other hand, I had to contact an internet provider because, according to my server, their security certificate had expired.  I tried calling, but was transferred three times and wound up back where I started.  I e-mailed them instead, but got a generic response and no promise that the problem would be handled.

If you were a secure website, wouldn’t you want somebody to let you know that you could be vulnerable–and your customers by proxy–to invasion?  Wouldn’t you at least want to extend a note of thanks to somebody who had taken the time to let you know about it?

Being a person who still (perhaps stupidly) believes in fighting for the right, I won’t stop trying.  That doesn’t mean I don’t get ticked off when others stop caring.

The news of a man opening fire inside an aerobics class at an L.A. Fitness club in the small Pennsylvania town of Bridgeville touched a nerve for me as it did for the general public.  Reports say the shooter, George Sodini, had been trying for years to find companionship with women and was continually rejected.  After years of frustration, he succeeded, in his second known attempt, to take his pain out on those he felt had hurt him.

It’s hard to be one of those human beings who just can’t find a mate of any kind, even just a friendly social type of relationship with a person of the preferred gender.  Of course, we never question our own fickle nature, we make it impossible for lonely people to find safe companionship, we have diseases like AIDS and an aversion to playing it safe for fear of looking like wimps.  We are also so aesthetically picky about people, we often cheat ourselves out of getting to know some wonderful folks just because they may not be perfectly turned out.

What the rampaging shooters in our society learn too late is that dead people can’t help you.  They can’t say they’re sorry that they don’t find you an acceptable prospect, or tell you the reasons why or give advice that would be beneficial.

Apparently Sodini was taking classes on how to “pick up” women, and he was hitting the gym to try to be shapely enough to attract women.  So what went wrong?  We may never find out from those victims who are still recovering from the shootings (three women died, and nine were injured before Sodini took his own life).  We are left with another legacy of revenge and terrorism that we will ultimately forget until the next time it happens.

It’s a question we subconsciously put to ourselves and others every day.  We often want to know if something is normal.  Often the barometer used for measuring normalcy is the opinions of others, rather than a scientific fact, but we use what is quickly and readily available to us to measure what is normal or acceptable.

Eating breakfast every morning is normal for me.  I always have the same breakfast during the week, and the changes I make on the weekends are the same, consistent variations  every weekend.  That, for me, is normal. Somebody may look at my breakfast, however, and deem it abnormal.  They may think I eat too many carbs or too much sugar, and they might be armed with an armful of books disputing my choice of breakfast.  On the other hand, they may eat bean sprouts for breakfast, which for me would be rather abnormal.

I wear shoes with thicker soles when it rains, because I think it helps keep water from puddles out of my shoes.  The idea of wearing flip-flops in rainy weather would not be normal for me, and I can’t understand why anybody else would willingly walk around in flip-flops when it’s raining.  Rain water carries germs and bacteria, and people walking in flip-flops then carry that contamination into public places and into their own homes.  That, for me, would be pleasant.  Public places sometimes accept summer clothing choices which may not be in the best interest of other people, simply in hopes of receiving the offenders’ business.  Wearing flip-flops as footwear other than for beaches or swimming pools might be accepted as normal, but it may not be truly acceptable behavior everywhere.

Churches are having issues about attendees wearing more casual attire when coming to services.  But then, sometimes congregants come in without having had breakfast, either.  What we accept as normal has been changing quite a bit lately.  Every day we ask ourselves what lines we will cross to get through another day, and it becomes harder to tighten the restrictions and easier to accept a new normalcy.

I was shocked to hear about the death of Michael Jackson, but quite a few thoughts about the effect of his passing on the world also entered my head at the same time.  I could prattle on about his songs, his moonwalking, his videos, the controversy; because he was a world celebrity, everybody else will flog his life story to death anyway.  Therefore, I won’t do that.

As I saw news footage of empty Michael Jackson CD and video racks at the stores, I thought it ironic that, in a world where the general public usually cheats their favorite artists out of their sales commissions (either on purpose or by accident) by downloading everything by computer, within minutes of the announcement that the star died everybody turned to the tangible sources of entertainment to soothe their upset spirits.

Does that sudden surge in record store sales mean all the remaining brick and mortar chains (FYE, for example) are still doomed to close eventually unless all the singers in the world die?  I came from the world of vinyl, cassettes and CDs, and I don’t own an IPod.  I prefer buying a music source that I know pays the artist his or her due, so I hope the stores don’t have to wait for the infamy of death to make their registers ring.

Which brings me to another thought I had:  that Michael Jackson never really got to be a regular person.  He worked for a living, but it wasn’t a job in an office or a construction site or hospital (though he probably visited all of them at one time or another).  He was an entertainer.  He submitted to the glam personification of his being that made him something beyond the ordinary human.  He gave up such basics as driving to the store, going to a high school basketball game, even using a public restroom without bodyguards.  He went to lavish parties at which he had to watch what little he was allowed to eat (imagine if he tried to moonwalk at 300 lbs), and had all his clothes picked out for him to meet the demands of a prefabricated image.  Can you imagine wanting to hang around in a tee shirt and sweat pants when you’re Michael Jackson?  It would be like spotting a priest in a Speedo:  it’s perfectly okay for 90 percent of humanity, but not for those we balance on pedestals of status.

He was denied a regular childhood, yet people wonder why he craved the chance to enjoy those things he didn’t have in youth, like a theme park all to himself (imagine him trying to have a fun day at Six Flags), or a bunch of kids at a sleepover.  True, once a person crosses a numerical threshold such behavior is frowned upon, and some of the stories about children at Neverland ranch were a bit hinky, but we as worshippers of that image of Michael Jackson are somewhat to blame.  Sure we wanted to see him perform for our ticket money, but he also had the fundamental right to be a child when he was one and not have to wait for a belated childhood once he could afford one.

We do cruel and hateful things to our celebrities and don’t expect them to be hurt.  When they die we speak highly of them, but we should really treat them better while they are with us.

It’s a pain in the neck at my age to always be behind the times and unable to catch up.  First it was microwaves, and then IPhones; now it’s Twitter.  As if instant messaging on IPhones isn’t cool enough, or Facebook or MySpace don’t quite cut it anymore, now one has to log all of their activities into cyberspace on some sort of mega-public cyberspace diary.

Sorry.  My life isn’t that interesting to warrant a bit of space on Twitter. 

I remember when I sent my first text message ever:  I used a privilege granted to me by my using an AT&T cellphone (which, by the way, is two years old) and voted on Dancing With the Stars, which meant I texted one word:  “Vote.”  I don’t think that would raise an eyebrow on Twitter, but it was an accomplishment for me.  I still text “vote” every season.  That’s about it.

When would I log in my life story anyway?  I already have to account to my boss for my workweek.  That’s tough to do, because by the time I come up for air after three hours straight staring at a cubicle corner highlighted by a dual screen computer filled with things to be done, I’m more ready to take a bio break than try to explain what functions I just performed.

Watchdog groups claim that a large chunk of the average workday is taken up by things not related to performing the job; I’m sure Twitter has contributed to this.  Instead of sending dull recounts of my day, I try to work on my novel, which has made considerable progress since May thanks to my determined concentration on the matter at hand.  I have noticed that some folks at work use time in the cafeteria to text, IM or tweet.  I write.  with a pen.  How simplistic and old-school, right?

I also refuse to do anything other than the purpose for which a restroom was intended during bio breaks.  I don’t take my cell with me, though occasionally I do hear people talking while pooing (ew) and wonder what could be so important that the call couldn’t wait for two minutes.

I look at Twitter like this:  when a bird chirps in the woods, others hear it, but with so many people tweeting on Twitter, the noise overwhelms the forest and no one bird ever stands out or gets the chance to be truly heard.