The Mundane World

Appointment with the dermatolgist:  Gone to!

So, is my face infested with cancer?:  Maybe!

Got an appointment made to get a biopsy (?) in which a portion of it will be chopped off and sent to the lab.  If the lab signals it is, in fact, cancer then they will scrape the rest of it off my face.  I was freaked out a first when the doctor a the school clinic told me that it might be skin cancer, but I think this was one of the rare instances where inexperience research on the internet calmed me down.  It is called Basal Cell Skin Cancer.  If hearing that you might have cancer is a lottery ticket, then Basal Cell Skin Cancer is the “You win a free lottery ticket”.  It maybe the only kind of cancer that is actually not a big deal.  As if to drive this point home, the doctor said “come in, we’ll run the test.  If it is cancer, we’ll lop it off and you’ll be on your way”.  Seriously, he used the word “lop it off” and “cancer” in the same sentence.  Lop not only is not a technical term, but I don’t think it can be.  Lop is in a rare category of words in which the definition is exactly what the word sounds like.  Don’t know what lop means?  Pronounce it out loud and suddenly you’ll know.  It’s like magic!

Back on point.  So, yeah, I have cancer, and I have all the health care I need to take care of it.  Things are pretty good.

On a side note, I found the ukulele chords for Pearl Jam’s version of “Soldier Of Love”.  Double plus!

Came across a new blog called The Skeptical OB.  I have only just discovered it, and it seems like at the moment she is on about unsafe home-birthing.  P.Z. Meyers liked it, so I’ll pass that recommendation on to you, my small handful of readers.  P.Z. Meyers likes to be angry, but I can only read so many stories about mothers and babies dying in home-births.  My skeptical focus is mostly on actually finding a local skeptical organization in which to be a part of.  So, I’ll just pass along information to those who might make more use of it than I.

Remember when Bib Laden was killed?  Remember how, since we have a really liberal social circle, many of us were a tad ambivalent about the death of Bin Laden (including me)?  Well I just came across this article that I saved and forgot to read about just that.  It was on the YourMorals.org blog, and you can follow this link for the original.  Don’t worry, it’s short.

Many of us felt a little odd about celebrating the death of another human being.  That is why sometimes I am very happy that there is a scientific study of things like this.  It gives me something specific and empirical to point at when I can’t put together the words (and even worry that what I’m putting together is wrong in the first place).  The long and the short of the article is that celebrating the victory for the United States the was symbolized by the death of Bin Laden is not the same as actually celebrating the death itself.  We had an enemy that legitimately wronged us and we brought them to justice.  That was what we were celebrating.  It was not about the death, it was the victory that happened to take the form of a death.  If he had not been killed and just brought into custody, I would have been just as happy about that.

I just wanted to share that.  It brought a little comfort to me about the way I felt afterwards.  I’ll leave to the last paragraph from the article.

I am generally liberal and have prototypically liberal angst about celebrating any death.  But in the case of the collective unity we are seeing, I think liberals should take yes for an answer to our universalist impulses and appreciate the resulting unity.  There are forces in the world (e.g. selfishness, competition, or threat) that cause us to restrict our circle of concern to ourselves and those immediately around us and there are forces in the world that cause us to expand our circle of concern and care.  I welcome the celebrations, because I’m hopeful this is a case of the latter.  - Ravi Iyer

Once a friend of mine had a question.  It was one of those general, conversation starting questions that you ask people to help get to know them.  I’m generally very bad at these kinds of questions.  Anyway, the question was “What is something that someone can do to make you instantly realize you’d be good friends?  What about to make you instantly dislike someone?”  I didn’t have an answer at the time because I’d made all my friends very individually, and I don’t think there was any specific linking feature between them (other than being generally awesome).

But I think I’ve finally come across it, and it all has to do with questions.  Are you the kind of person that doesn’t mind answering questions?  Guess what, I like you.  I like people that genuinely like to inform other people.  Ignorance is a temporary state, and anyone who is genuinely interested in leaving that state is someone that I think should be respected.  Even stupid questions, if asked in good faith, should be respected.  Stupid questions can still lead to smart people, because people can always be informed into asking better questions.  I like people that will help others better themselves.

Are you the kind of person who mocks, ridicules, and otherwise disparages people who ask questions?  Well then, I don’t like you.  Not answering questions is respectable, but there is no need to insult people who are genuinely seeking information.  Answer them or not, but there is no need to make fun of them.  It just shows that you’re kind of a bully, that you enjoy displaying superiority over others.

I’m sure I feel this way partly because I’m the kind of person that likes to ask questions, and I’ve been made fun of kind of a lot for it.  I think asking a question is a small act of courage.  It’s your coming out and saying, in no ambiguous terms, “I don’t know, but I want to”.  And anyone who makes fun of someone trying to become more informed is, to me, an asshole.

It’s just one of my few major pet peeves.  Spelling ‘enough’ as just ‘nuff’ is another one.

Erica and I are living rent free with Erica’s Grammie.  Erica’s entire family has been very…maybe generous is the word…about not condemning us for being free loaders.  Erica’s Uncle Jonathon has been very understanding about us being poor and in college, and her other Uncles felt better about the arrangement once sever things happened that Grammie couldn’t have dealt with on her own (fall at home one night, taking things to the dump, being here when she was out of town and the basement flooded, etc.).

Erica’s family has been understanding in every way.  One way in which they have been exceptionally understanding is that they are not hold us responsible for getting Grammies house clean.  Grammie lives in Windsor, the rest of the family lives in Barrie.  That is a four to five hour drive.  Since Grammie is the only member of the family not living in Barrie (minus Erica’s Dad) and she is getting up in years, a family decision was made to move Grammie to Barrie to be near her children and grandchildren.

Grammie agrees too…in theory.

She has done almost nothing to clean the house in any way shape or form.  In fact, her very nature seems to be contrary to sorting and getting rid of stuff in general.  The only thing that is preventing her from being a hoarder is that she has a large amount of space to keep shit in.  There seriously was not 3 square feet of empty space until I made it about two weeks ago, and that 3ft square is all there is in the house.  Grammie fills everything.  We create more space, and she fills it up.  It’s maddening.

I mention all of this because I came across something today that I think very well shows this.  Grammie has a cycle that she follows almost religiously.  After an event of some type (birthday, trip, etc.), she goes and prints out all the pictures she took of the event.  That is, she goes to a camera store with her digital camera and prints out almost every picture she takes of said event.  How many pictures is that?  Just to give you an idea, two weeks on vacation in Scotland netted her around 8,000 photos.  After she prints out almost all these photos she buys an album to put them in.  She begins sorting out the photos until the task becomes too overwhelming, then stops, leaving the piles of pictures sitting around until she stores them away “to sort another day”.  How far back does this cycle go?

This is the album meant for Erica & I’s wedding day.  It’s just what I found today.

The task of sorting and cleaning the house does not fall on the heads of Erica and I thanks to Erica’s sympathetic family.  But I really will feel like I’ve failed in a small way if we don’t help Grammie clean out her house before we move out.  Everyday this is looking more and more impossible, which I think is why no one’s holding us to it.

God, I’m dying for some people to play old-fashioned table games with.  Dominoes? Monopoly? Chess?  Backgammon?  Sorry?  Card games for christsakes!?  I don’t need people how know how to play, I just need people who would be willing to learn and then play with me.