Look Ma, No Brain (function)

Creepy title apologetics
Okay. The title's a little creepy but it's intended humorously as most things are with me. You'll see. Sorry I haven't posted lately but quality before quantity, right? Anyway, here's a heap'o blogginess.

I'm writing about a mysterious time in my life. Not just mysterious as in hidden from others but mysterious as in mysterious TO ME. The reasons for that will become apparent but first I must rant and then take a quick trip back in time. First...the rant.

The Rant
THERE IS NO LIVING BEING MORE ANNOYING, GENERALLY PUKE INDUCING AND WASTEFUL OF VALUABLE AIR FOR WORTHWHILE HUMANS THAN ANN COULTER. NOBODY! Alright, here's the deal. She says MONUMENTALLY STUPID things. Not just stupid but MONUMENTALLY stupid. It's the kind of stupidity that archaeologists 3000 years from now will wonder at. Strike one? She called widows of men who died in 911 "broads." I assume the word "whores" made an appearance somewhere in the film cuttings from the interview. Strike two? She actually BELIEVES that WE ALL would be happier as Conservative lockstep drones. She really really believes that. Strike three happened last week. She was on a CNBC show called "The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch." (Why? God only knows.) Anyway, he was interviewing her (Why, God?! Whyyyyyyyyyyy???) and she said that EVERYBODY SHOULD BE CHRISTIAN AND THAT...wait for it...JEWS SHOULD CONVERT TO BE "PERFECTED." Her words. Donny Deutsch is Jewish and she said it TO HIS FACE. Oh, and she laughed off his indignation. Piece'a work does not BEGIN to describe this chickoid. Yes, she is a chickoid...and a whole buncha shorter words I don't wanna use. However, I will say that the term "too stupid to live" actually applies to someone. Yea!!!!!!!!!!!!

Time Travel
2001. I was in College at U of Montana and heavily involved in student politics and disability advocacy. I'd met my dearest T a year ago and we lived together in a tiny apartment while we slowly moved to our current home in EMo (East Missoula to the non-THUGS in da hizzouse). Health wise, I was okay except for strange respiratory attacks that were asthma-ish but I didn't have asthma. As months progressed to a year and beyond, my attacks got worse. I could barely breath, went unconscious for long-ass periods of time (days), I was always freezing and literally couldn't recall anything from one day to the next. The Docs had me on Oxygen, nebulizers and a preliminary diagnosis of dying to death. Okay, okay, it was actually the idea that my breathing muscles were too weak to breath and I couldn't get enough O.

2003. My lost year. Out of 365 days and 6 hours in that year, I remember maybe 20 or 30. Basically, I remember maybe a day out of that year. I was passed out more than I was awake. I was skeletal because I couldn't stay awake to eat. I call this my "smurfy" phase cuz I was mostly blue. December of that year, I recall asking T to come lay with me in home/bed.

"How long have I been asleep?" I asked because last I remembered I was up in my chair and didn't remember being put in bed.

"Since Tuesday," she said while brushing my cheek with her fingers. Tuesday. It was Thursday. I'd slept 2 days straight without being aware of it. It was like an alien abduction story: I had missing time. It hit me how I'd been living, what I'd become and I broke. I cried, sobbed, babbled in confusion and fear. She cried with me, held me, feeling the same fear. Eventually, I calmed. I looked straight into her wide blue eyes and told her straight that the odds were against me surviving the winter. I said it amazingly calm for as terrified as I was inside. Saying you aren't afraid of death ain't the same as staring it in the gaping maw. I was scared. She was scared. We were both losing me and helpless to stop it.

I don't know how I lived through that winter. I stayed unconscious, got thinner but lived. I guess it's the steel inside, the core of pure will that makes me both a blessing and a rather stubborn curse. Ask T. Really. I couldn't leave her here without me but, also, my brother perished in July 2003 (naturally during the year I could remember least) and I wasn't letting anything take me that same year. It would've broken mom and my grandmas hearts to lose me too. I never ever wanna hurt anyone that badly. So, with will, T's love, Docs help, I survived.

I got better or I wouldn't be writing this. Long story super short, it wasn't lack of O killing me, it was waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much CO2 stuck in my system because I couldn't exhale it out. I was dying of Carbon Dioxide poisoning. DUH. Any idiot (especially this idiot) should have figured THAT out. April 2004 I got a non-invasive ventilator that helps pull O in and blow the other crap out. In three months I became me again just skinnier. I began to rebuild my life and bang-zoom, here I am writing this.

Dying was scary. Not knowing why was scarier. I now believe that the mindset of a dying person is vital to the legacy they leave and perhaps the experience they have. Our minds frame everything from how we process senses, to personality and choice, even how we shape the world. It absolutely effects how we die. We imagine death as a "known quantity" as if we truly understand what it means and how it happens. I now believe it's not "known" at all. If our mind frames our knowledge and experience of death then death is as wide and deep as the human mind. Though we all possess mind, do we really understand it? I say maybe on the very surface levels but there are entire UNIVERSES underneath that we glimpse and can never grasp. Our mind creates our life as well as our death. Therefore, I think that to ensure our peaceful passing we should learn to cultivate peaceful mindsets and apply them to our lives. From there, serenity would become a natural part of the daily flow (wolf) of our lives. How could we not carry that peace with us as we flow beyond into the Great Next? How could fear or pain ever truly intrude on the sacred space we'd create for ourselves?

D