Life in a Month

Ring in the New Year!


Lobsters and Steak!!!!

So this is my 2009. I am getting over my third cold, actually this one is a sinus infection, however I am in the mood to write so I plopped onto the site. My 2008 went out with a bang. It was an awkward holiday as many family members spent mourning the loss of Mocha, dog on the go. It has been particularly hard on my father and brother however I am glad Mocha is no longer in pain. Both her and Sadie are eating poptarts in my memories now. I still can be found standing in my parents backyard yelling 'Action!' the word I used to yell when both dogs were hanging out together in a vain attempt to get Sadie to run around. It basically amounted to her walking slowly toward the avocado tree but Mocha always liked it. Her ashes currently reside on the my parents sofa, the sofa she was never allowed on. New Years eve was a blasto too. Monkey interrupted prayer at the New Years eve family dinner with a knock knock joke, he also passed out shortly there after. (see below for his celebration)



I didnt really mind the knock knock joke because I dont think anyone is listening anyway and once my sister got drunk she stole all the thunder! :) THUNDER! It was hysterical and so nice to not be the one on the kitchen floor for a change.



Most of the family was there, including my bad ass family from Davis that I never get to see. I love my aunt and seeing her hubby cutting loose and giving, nay, forcing out shots was a jolly old laugh. Save Jay when woke up puking, but you know who didn't puke, me! Odd huh. Anyway, I love my family. Notice the B's werent there but we did channel ichat!



And then Obama!! I watched the swearing in at my cubicle at work and cried when he placed his hand on the bible Lincoln used for his swearing in. I have faith that he will be able to unite people and move us forward however I am realistic in the walls that have to come down..



Last year brought my sister and Berto together. It has been so nice seeing both of them happy. Struggled and lonely as they had been and both not enjoying the dating scene, they finally sealed the deal at CVI and continue to be happy together. I am so pleased that two people who kick so much ass are making a go of it, (at Grover Cloverland)


See. it looks natural huh?

So 2009 rolled in. My brother and Mandy broke up. I think I took it hard, still hurts. I wish them both well in their future lives and hope to still be in Mandy's life, however right now that doesn't seem likely. I took the fall for lack of honesty and eventually I hope my brother clears my name but in the meantime I just want whats best for both of them. Berto will be moving in and I hope this advances my brothers responsibility and also his social skills. Poochie is single ladies, LINE UP behind me.

Vagina weekend came! This year we rented a cabin up north along the Russian River. Can I just say 'Is Tamara Home?', if you've seen The Strangers you feel my fear. It was so nice. We had no neighbors and arrived to the cabin in pitch darkness, well in the morning I would find us to be in the backyard of the Korbel Winery. Who needs coffee?!


The Cabin


The View!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me just someone got ripped off. For forty dollars you got a bracelet that gave you access to like 80 wineries and I feel like we did it justice on Saturday! We started off at Korbel and sampled every champagne, port, and brandy with decadent food to follow. Then like frogs in heaven we jumped from pad to pad sippin on wine of all types. Blissful.... It was nice just being alone with my sisters and my mom. There was nice talk in the outdoor jacuzzi and nice naps on the guest bed which overlooked the forest. I don't get to spend too much time with the women in my family and I always find Vagina Weekend to be such a supportive and bonding experience.



and ended up, per my wining, at the River Rock Casino, where I pocketed $320 bucks!! Amy won too! So I treated everyone to a bad ass Mexican dinner with nachos and beer! I love hanging out with the vaginas!


Go mom!


Ya think so?

All in all its been a good year. My relationship with Monk is going very well and he continues to astound me in his progress with his personal challenges. Work is still work and I am learning so many new things about myself. My last photo shoot went very well and I plan on getting back on this hobby horse.


-My stunning last model, Josie Bunny.



I am spending the next two nights from 8pm-2am volunteering for the Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority (LAHSA) helping them with their annual Los Angeles county homeless count. I used the demographics gathered from the 2005 survey for my thesis and also in all of my nonprofit work and political arguments so I figure I have to give back. I am just as passionate and forced in my desire to help others as I have ever been, however have been working on my boundaries. I know I am where I am supposed to be right now. I drove a client to Acton rehab today, out in Antelope Valley, and when I waiting in the lobby for him at his intake I picked up a magazine about outdoor living and the feature was houses in Moab. Odd huh? It's still calling me. I smiled.

Well I think thats that. Drop me a line and say hello or take me out for a drink in a new watering hole!

Home Sick

I am sick. Sick again. I just had a cold before Christmas and thought I was immune, immune I tells ya but no, no I am not. I went to work yesterday trying to power my way through the day and ending up leaving early. So now I sit on the couch stuck here surrounded by day time tv, have you ever seen anything more depressing. My morning began with Jerry Springer and now I am watching Maury, it a celebrity look like episode. HELP!!!

I hate using sick time when I'm actually sick. In fact I dont remember the last time I called in sick for being actually sick. I'm not out having fun, on a trip, or hung over. Nope, I am sick. There isn't much to do in your house when your sick. You lay on the couch and look around at projects you could finish but where is the energy. You lay around thinking about fun times you could having using a sick day and think about getting up and showering cuz you could go out, but no, you are sick.

My regiment includes tylenol cough syrup every three hours and 'Sine Off' pills monkey's dad got from some Mexican knock off store, these pills actually work and every once in awhile my nose dries up. When I sneeze its bliss because for the next three seconds I can actually breathe about of both nostrils.Ahhhh. I am taking cough drops, sippin tea, drinking chicken soup, and occasionally enjoying hot chocolate. I can't hear out of my ears and when I speak the sound of my own voice echoes in my head. It's great, especially when I sing.

Well, drop me a line, or three or four, I am so sad sick and bored! :)

Ho Ho Hoe!

Its been six days since Santacon in San Francisco and I am no less a Ms Claus today than that time.

Eggnog?

County Hospital

Our county continues to astonish me. Yay! This could be because it is now 2:28 am and I have been at County USC hospital since 10:30 am, when I joined Monk whom I had dropped off at ER around 7am. Yup I have been sittin in this waiting room for 16 hours. You see, Monk visited a Hollywood Clinic last night for a EKG in order to have his heart assessed for his meds. Upon the print out the nurse says ‘Oh, you have to go to emergency, you have a abnormal heart’. If the thought of someone telling you that you have an irregular heart rate doesn’t scare the hell out of you, imagine they tell you this and you live in one of the most populated cities on the planet and you don’t have health care; behold…County Hospital.

I think about how great it is that we even have access to a county hospital as so many people living on this planet have no hospital access whatsoever, so before I begin my bitch session don’t think I haven’t thought about that. However, this is America right?, the ‘world power’ the industrialized nation and Los Angeles is one of the richest places on the planet, so come on is health care too much to ask for. Yes, yes it is.

Maybe you have heard the horror stories about County USC hospital or ‘County’ as it’s called. From the outside the almost century old building stands proud with plush gardens and a newly built wing for psychiatric and ER patients. However, once inside the grim truth greets you as people lay bellowing in pain sitting in chairs stacked high to the ceiling. Monk sat in the emergency from 7am until 10:33 pm when they finally called him, almost 16 hours. Now its almost 3am and I, having just asked if he will be admitted, has been informed the doctor hasn’t seen him yet, so the nurse can neither confirm nor deny his admittance. I have had four large cups of coffee, downloaded tetris on my phone for $6.95, played free slots on my laptop, read Scientologist literature, smoked a pack of cigarettes while reading free literature on how to quit, and fed several outdoor pigeons.

I also watched a lady, escorted by her husband, throw up blood all over the entrance to ER. No one cleaned it up and if you go out to the walk way you can still see it. She was issued a gurney at the door on which she laid in the corner of the ER waiting room for 45 minutes throwing up blood until someone took her into the back. There was a man sitting next to Monk and I who was throwing up lime green vomit, he too was hunched over in pain. He was admitted 7 hours after arriving. GREEN VOMIT! At 10:45pm a man came in who had been shot in the upper arm. He had a towel over the wound. It took him 45 minutes to be admitted.

As I sit here in this shiny new waiting room there hangs a banner over my head, ‘Surrounding you with innovation: New Hospital, New Technology, New Network. A Tradition of Excellence’. I am sitting here fantasizing about the banner falling from the cathedral style ceiling on to someone’s head in the waiting room only to see how long it will take for this ‘tradition of excellence’ to begin. The truth is our health care system, or lack there of, is no laughing manner. There are families surrounding me with parents hugging their little ones in blankets, signing songs in Spanish to them as they rock back and forth with worried expressions on their faces. There are husbands who lay in the laps of their wives who look helpless and frightened like the little boys they once were. All eyes face the door. It sort of reminds me of playing Keno. Everyone here is focused, waiting for their number to be called. However there is no numerical pattern. Because no one here has health insurance everyone is seen by how critical their injuries are. Therefore you have about seventy people who have been waiting most of the day and night for things like the flu, cold, or cough. When the emergency door opens we all hold our breath as we pray the next person who joins us won’t be worse off. If the next one in the boat is a heart attack, stroke, or poison victim that pushes everyone back an hour, at least.

Here you also see people for who they are. Several people speak under their breath about all the Latinos getting medical attention who are here without documentation while those hard working Americans struggle. I was outside smoking when a white man from Kern County said this to me as we smoked. I said, actually we don’t give undocumented immigrants Medi-Cal, however he didn’t believe me. Then there are the negative views of the homeless. A sigh from the older gentleman next to me when a homeless man entered the room, usually escorted by the paramedic that brought them in, lets me know it’s just another undeserving person seeking services. There are several mentally ill homeless people here. They talk to themselves, are extremely unkept, and odorous- much the way a homeless person who sleeps on the streets would be. This place is a monster. When the big one hits please make sure you have your health insurance card on you and if you happen to get injured during the quake and you don’t have insurance I wish you a quick and painless death for this place will.

Monk and I finally head for home at 5:45am with a big yellow moon hanging on the horizon. We talk about all those who are still waiting. I do not doubt that the people who work there are doing the best they can, but how good is that when there are too many people in need of services and not enough service to offer them.

Helpless

I don't know if anyone out there in internet space even reads my posts and I often wonder why I just don't get out my journal and write instead but I find some solace in this blog.

It's 8:00 am, no alarm sounded this morning and it was a great opportunity to sleep in however I just woke up, laid there, and stared at the ceiling. So I made coffee, read the paper, looked out the window, and lit a smoke. This week work has been hell, no not the type of hell you get placed in for some random sin you committed over your lifetime by a loveless and thankless god, but the real kind of hell you find yourself staring at when you feel the absence of hope.

Here is the breakdown of my week at work:
-51/50'd a man who has been making such great progress however he relapsed and came up with a plan that he was going to start random fights with strangers until he found one that would kick his ass to the point of death. When I asked if he was suicidal he said "yes, I'm a freak, wouldn't you want to be dead if you were me?' So he was held in the hospital for one day and I went to pick up when he was released, he appeared fine. The same night he relapsed again and tore apart his room at his board and care. He has sense been MIA however will call me on my cell from pay phones to tell me it's only a matter of time now till he dies and to take care of myself. Helpless.
-Talked another man into going to the hospital because I believe he has gangrene in his foot. His ankle is the size of a grapefruit and it is entirely black, he can no longer walk on it. His reason for not going to the hospital, 'I dont care, let it fall off, my life is shitty anyway, maybe people will be nicer to me if I only have one leg.' I just stared at him. His plan after we left a hospital that essentially just gave him a cane and told him if he didn't go to County hospital he would loose his leg soon, he lacks Medi-Cal, is to wait until his leg starts to smell (decompose) then he'll find someone to cut it off. Helpless.
-Worked with another women who has two black eyes and only comes in to see me after her boyfriend has kicked the shit out of her, she tells me its over when she visits, she understands why she has to leave, and how next time she may die. As I am leaving work on friday I see them walking across an intersection together holding hands. Helpless.
-Placed a man in rehab after he assured me he was ready to quit and he was actually making great progress. He called me from the rehab on thursday to let me know there were more drugs in the program than skid row. He said 'Its great this place is like a hotel and because there are so many visitors to the people in the program they bring drugs, and its cheaper then buying drugs on the streets, but dont worry, I am still trying to quit and I just want to be honest with you.' Helpless.
-Visited a women who is in her sixties at her hotel room that has no bathroom, only shared bathroom down the hall, and she informed me cheerfully she had made a makeshift toilet in her room because there was a man who was threatening her for money so she didn't even feel safe enough to use the bathroom in the hotel. She literally will sit in a chair and take a shit into a plastic bag then when she feels safe will throw it out, sometimes the bags pile up in her room and she puts them under her bed. Helpless.

I feel so helpless, I stand aside my peeps as they take one step forward and eight steps backward. I closed three cases of peeps who went to jail so they were dis-enrolled, after we made progress, only to inherit three more people that put me back at step one: outreach, engage, and try to help.

I feel like I am putting a bandaid on a on a car crash victim and telling them it will be ok, when in the back of my head I know the person is going to die. From where I stand it seems so logical, yet from where these people stand there is no logic. I think about them when I lay down to go to bed at night, the first thing when I wake up, and throughout my day.

I have to find something to do today, my day off, to actually make it a day off.