Moonlit Dreams

The Waiting Room Blues

03/14/2012

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...IT ALL STARTS WITH A PHONE CALL...
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Space Herpes... Quote from: Zeno - Ice Pirates
I hate waiting. I especially hate waiting to hear bad news. Doctors' offices should be split by good news and bad news waiting rooms. People getting good news will simply continue to bask in their good news glory while the rest of us unlucky souls get called back one at a time, waiting our turn for the hammer to drop.

Good news, after all, is worth waiting for. Having to sit through face after smiling face of good news recipients just adds insult to the already injured! Screw you - happy, shiny, good news people - screw you!

Okay, I'm really not that bitter. I'm cool with the fact that someone else gets to walk out with a smile on their face. Seriously, wish it were me waving happily at the bad news people, wondering why they are all flipping me off as I head out the door.

The worst is when you go to the doctor knowing full well you're about to get bad news. You know when you get the call... 

"Ms. X, we need you to come in today at two and discuss your lab results."

"Oh shit! Oh crap! It's space herpes isn't it? Damn those anal probing aliens! Who do they think they are?"

A little muffled laughter on the other end of the phone and the receptionist/nurse starts again, "are you going to be available at two today?"

"If I say yes, are you going to be available at two?"

"I'm sorry?" The receptionist clearly didn't pick up on my meaning.

"You know, am I going to get there 15 minutes early only to watch two o'clock come and go, waiting for my particular brand of bad news until closer to three?"

"Um, I'm not sure. Look, are you going to be available at two or not?"

"Yeah, sure! I will be your bad news hostage at two. Are you sure it's not just space herpes?
LATER ON THAT DAY... a little after 2 o'clock
"Ms. X..."

"Yep, that's me." This is the point where you let them see you checking your watch or the nearest clock. "Wow, have I really been here for 20 minutes already?"

"I don't know, but we need your co-pay, please!"

"Of course," I reluctantly hand over my not so shiny little blue plastic card and pay the lady. There seems to be some sort of tragic circumstance here though. Having to pay to get bad news is just cruel and unusual. Screw those murderers on death row, who's gonna lobby for the "bad news" patients' rights?

"Thank you, have a seat and someone will be with you shortly!"
...30 MINUTES LATER...
By now I am muttering under my breath, possibly to the unfortunate soul who managed to sit too close, despite my overly anxious, ticked off demeanor. "If one more grinning idiot walks out here waving at me - I WILL explode!"

"Ms. X, you can come back now."

Well, I've only been here for nearly an hour now, you would think I would be ecstatic about this bit of news, but not now. Now, I am used to the waiting room. I am people watching, and occasionally trying to figure out who the baby-daddy is on Maury - because Maury Povich is inevitably DNA testing someone every single time I am sitting in a waiting room. I believe his show might just contract with waiting rooms around the country, possibly the world, to make sure we all get to see the baby-daddy drama we never knew we were missing! But I digress, as I have a story to continue here.

I meander up to the disgruntled nurse escort that has come to meet me in the waiting room. She sort of smiles and I follow her through the winding corridors, you know, the ones hospitals and clinics use to make it impossible not to get lost!

I lean in close, ready to ask a question, as she first eyes me and then the scale. The SCALE, which has been cleverly placed in the middle of the hallway, where people are lined up and waiting in what seems to be the waiting room overflow area. Why not? Because - being told my weight is already such a joy that I absolutely WANT to share it with all these people too! 

"Seriously, you can tell me - is it space herpes?"

"How about we get your weight and blood pressure first, and then I'll go pull your information."

Wait... What? You haven't "pulled" my information yet? So, you don't even know what my afliction is? And now, you're telling me I have to wait... AGAIN?

Okay, on the bright side, I have my own room now. There are no more good news grins walking by giving me the "I don't have the Clap after all" thumbs up! The downside, more waiting and wondering. With all the ailments I have diagnosed myself with by now, the least of which being space herpes, I could be dead before I get these damn results. There has to be a more efficient way of...

*Knock kock* "Hi, how are you?"

"Just tell me if it's space herpes already!!!"

"You're so funny!" 

*grumbles*

"Okay, well, I called you in here, because..." BAD NEWS DELIVERED WITH A SMILE, and a squeeze of the thigh in reassurance. "Do you have any questions?"

"Just one, why couldn't it be space herpes? At least then I'd have a cool story. This just sucks!"

That's okay though, I know just what I need to cheer me up. I'm gonna go march back out to that damn waiting room and give everyone a big cheesy grin and a double thumbs up. I'm gonna make those bastards wonder what good news I got while they were suffering through the waiting room blues! Better yet, I'm gonna tell them the good news!

"Good news, y'all!!!" Obligatory thumbs up and cheesy grin, "it's not space herpes!" 

*audible gasps* & *audible chuckles*
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The Big F-U to Government and Big Business

03/05/2012

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So, there are two hot topics on my mind these days. Hell, you might say, in a way, they go hand in hand. 

1) Some government moron decided it would be good to allow a woman's EMPLOYER and/or insurance company to decide if they want her to take birth control or not (deciding whether insurance will cover costs). And then, the little lemmings in office ran with that disgusting little idea in the form of The Blunt Amendment - which was killed in the Senate recently - thankfully!

2) Paypal, under supposed influence of the major credit card companies - IE: BANKS, have decided that Indie authors can no longer sell erotica titles that deal at all with the following topics: Rape, Incest, & Bestiality.

I'm going to tackle these separately - birth control first - because I want you to stew over those three questionable erotica choices for a few minutes first.

My Body... My Choice... My Birth Control...

Even when I was abstinent (that means not having sex, people) I still took "the pill."  
Why on earth would anyone take "the pill" if they aren't trying to stop pregnancy? 
It's simple, that little pill, that may keep me from not getting pregnant when I actually have sex, is also the same little pill that helps reduce the God-Awful PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder) symptoms I suffer with. What is that? In short, it means that the week before and during my period I am prone to serious bouts of anger issues, irritability, and mood swings thanks to my body's stupid response to hormones! It also means that I have other exaggerated period symptoms - like a super long, super heavy period, severe - drop you to your knees cramps, bloating, and super-tiredness. You'd be super freaking tired too if you were bleeding to death and in torturous pain, all while super duper emotional!  

So, what does "the pill" do for me and why is it important?  I take Yaz, which helps lesson all those symptoms a LOT! As in, I can actually function, and have a normal life, without resigning myself to bed and making sure no one disturbs me. I REALLY, REALLY wish my hormones were normal, and that they got along with the rest of my body, but they don't. So, I take the pill to moderate between the two.  It works. :)  

What would happen if those government morons I spoke of earlier got their way?  I will have to walk into my boss's office (assuming I have one - which I don't since I am self-employed) and beg and plead for him to allow my insurance to cover that particular hormone therapy that I need in order to keep coming to work for more than 2 weeks a month! Why are my female inner workings ANY of my boss's business?  Well, THEY ARE NOT, but the idiots that "the people" elected in the US Government sure were trying to make it his or her business.  So much for HIPPA or any other privacy policy! 

Women - voters - take note of who tried to take away your right to choose, and stand strong at the polls next time! Any government official who believes that a woman's right to medicines should be regulated by her bosses, insurance agents, and the government needs to lose their damn position - immediately!

And what do you suppose is going to happen if they one day get their way, maybe other hormone therapies will be on the chopping block next. Those silly "fat people" don't have a REAL thyroid issue. It's all in their heads, and the food they're eating!!!  You laugh now, mark my words, if you let the government, insurance companies, and especially our employers start dictating what can and can't be covered based on their own MORALS and VALUES (cough, laugh, cough) then you are asking for exactly that to happen! It will not stop at Birth Control or Plan B. 

I'm sorry, but my body is just that! MINE! And if I don't ever want to get pregnant again - that is my damn choice, as well as my own business! I, personally, already have 4 children. I have done more than my part in over-populating the world thanks to my rabbit like reproductive abilities. The last thing I need is another one, and no - you pious sons of bitches, I am not giving up sex! If God didn't want us doing it, he wouldn't have made it feel so good!  ;)  

Big Business & Censorship

Okay, before I go off on another tangent, let's move along to the second issue...  CENSORSHIP by BIG BUSINESS!!

Don't think this happens?  Think again! It's happening RIGHT FREAKING NOW! Smashwords, a fantastic resource for Indie Authors to get their books distributed to many retailers, including ibooks, Sony, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, is currently in talks with Paypal about the censorship request that Paypal handed down last month.

What is Paypal trying to censor? Well, they have put Smashwords on notice that they will sever business ties with them if erotica books dealing with the following themes are not taken down immediately: 
Rape, Incest, and Bestiality.
"Those are all three amoral, horrible things," you say.
"Who cares," you say. 
Well, I do! Now, I'm going to tell you why.

If I want to read FICTION about any of those subjects, it's no one else's business! If I want to WRITE fiction about any of those things, again, it's no one's business, but mine and the consumer who wants to read it. Take a look at free source places like 
Literotica.com (WARNING that link is for an ADULTS only site!) 
and you will see that in their "top lists" Incest is one of the biggest read genres, for whatever reason. I'm not here to judge anyone else's fantasies. What I am here to do is protect our ability to write stories, read stories, and not have a business tell us what we can and can't say in them!

Because, as with the above jump from birth control to thyroid medication, if we don't stop it somewhere... it won't stop. Next thing you know some Visa exec has issues with trolls, or dolls, or those freaky clowns that plague my nightmares! Think I'm stretching things? Think again. Under the current rules that Paypal has handed down to Smashwords ( again supposedly in response to pressure from the major credit card companies) world famous author Laurrel K. Hamilton wouldn't be able to have her best selling, extremely popular Anita Blake series for sale. Why? It has instances of rape and bestiality. Go ahead, let the gasps out. How can a NY Times Best Seller have anything to do with bestiality? Well, children, Mrs. Hamilton writes about fantasy creatures, were-creatures, humans who change into animals. In one of her books, these were-creatures were forced to have sex on tape (RAPE), and forced to shift into their animal form during sex (BESTIALITY). Snuff films were being made - if you don't know what that is, look it up yourself, I'm not Wikipedia! And anyway, I am sure "snuff literature" will be added to the list soon too.  lol 

If that example didn't work for you,  think about it like this... 
Twilight is wildly popular right now, but damn that dirty Bella! She's a necropheliac - I mean, come on, she had sex with a technically dead person! I'm sure necrophelia will be added to that list of taboo - censored books too! And when she was hanging out with Jacob, she was in danger of committing bestiality, he's a freaking wolf after all! You see where I am going with this?  Yeah, that's what worries me. Once we allow BUSINESS to censor what we read, write, and sell they will not stop. There goes Fantasy and Sci-Fi books because God-forbid Captain Kirk have sex with those aliens, or werewolves and humans fall in love! 

In closing, I would like to say:

  • If you don't personally want to take birth control for religious/moral reason - then don't do it! And good for you, for sticking to your beliefs and not being a hypocrite, really! I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
  • My beliefs and yours are NOT the same though. So, I will respect your decision to have 15 more children because you don't want to use birth control. Please, respect my decision not to suffer from PMDD and to do the responsible thing and not have any more children. I don't want to bring more into this world than I can care for!
  • Also, if you don't want to read about RAPE, INCEST, BESTIALITY, CLOWNS, VAMPIRES, or HOW TO MAKE SMILEY FACE PAINTINGS OUT OF COKE BOTTLES... then don't read those things!  I understand it goes against your beliefs, but no one made you buy it, and certainly no one sat there and made you read it! If you don't like it, leave it alone. If everyone that reads it goes to the hell of your imagining, then so be it. It was their choice to go! Leave them to it!


The People have a voice, if we make it loud, and speak up for our own fundamental rights, then maybe we can hang onto those rights for a little while longer!  :) 

Happy reading and breeding!  ;)
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