I had been doing so well.

Then today I twisted wrong, and searing pain ripped through my ribcage so intensely that I thought I was going to pass out. It died out after a couple hours, but now I'm more than a little worried that I've done something to set back the healing process.

Guess there's just no easy recovery from getting hit by a car.

And on that note...

Ever since getting a tetanus shot, I've been a little on edge.

Sometimes when I'm chewing it will feel like my jaw is tightening up, and I start to wonder if the vaccine didn't work and I've contracted lockjaw. Then that's about all I can think about for hours.

But the bigger issue is the vaccine itself. From Wikipedia...

Tetanus vaccine is a vaccine composed of deactivated tetanus toxins. This vaccine is immunogenic but not pathogenic and is used to prevent an individual from contracting tetanus.

And that's not all...

The type of vaccination for this disease is called artificial active immunity. This type of immunity is generated when a dead or weakened version of the disease enters the body causing an immune response which includes the production of antibodies. This is beneficial to the body because this means that if the disease is ever introduced into the body, the immune system will recognize the antigen and produce antibodies more rapidly.

What if they accidentally shot me up with LIVE tetanus toxins instead of deactivated ones? That wouldn't be a good thing, now would it? This would certainly explain why my jaw keeps feeling like it's tightening up!

If you don't hear from me again, I'm probably dead.

After writhing in agony for hours.

There's so much horror in the world today that we're pretty much conditioned to accept it as normal.

The problem being that it isn't normal, and I'm growing more and more despondent over the fact that people seem perfectly content to let it slide. We've become a society ruled by hatred and fear, and any joy we feel is tempered by the knowledge that somebody, somewhere hates us for what we think... for what we believe... for who we are. Even worse, we're constantly reminded of it. Keeping everybody in a perpetual state of fear is apparently the easiest way to control them.

This was made painfully clear to me earlier in the evening when I got a call from the National Rifle Association...

"I'M CALLING WITH A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE NRA WHO WANTS YOU TO LISTEN TO A SHORT ONE-MINUTE MESSAGE AND ANSWER A QUESTION ABOUT HOW CONGRESS IS TRYING TO STRIP US OF OUR SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS AND--

"I'm not interested."

"IT WILL ONLY TAKE A MINUTE OF YOUR TIME AND--"

"I support gun ownership, and am disgusted that you are trying to scare the crap out of people with absurd threats like this. Nobody is taking our guns away. So no thanks."

= click! =

Now, he could have called and said "I'm with the NRA, and I'm calling to ask for your support as we work to ensure Second Amendment rights are protected for all Americans." But oh no... the asshole had to call and say "THEY'RE COMING TO TAKE YOUR GUNS AND STRIP YOU OF YOUR RIGHTS! BOOGAH BOOGAH BOOGA!!!"

Well fuck that. And fuck the NRA for being such fear-mongering dicks. While the particulars surrounding gun ownership will always be debated, there's not going to be a repeal of the Second Amendment when the majority of Americans support it. And how do I know the majority of American's support it? Oh... IT'S ON THE NRA'S FUCKING WEBSITE!

I suppose now I'm going to get a call from the anti-gun lobby saying "THE NRA WANTS TO FORCE YOUR KIDS TO CARRY GUNS IN SCHOOL!" or some other fear-encrusted bullshit.

It never ends.

And here I thought somebody telling me my handwriting was "stupid" because I don't drop the descenders on my p's and g's and y's and q's was the worst thing that could happen today...

... but instead I had to be reminded that the world sucks ass.

And that sucks ass.

   
P.S. My handwriting is terrible because I don't hand-write a lot. I mostly type on a computer. And when I do write, it's usually in all-caps. Sometimes I have to use lower-case letters, but I still like everything to fit between the lines on a paper so I move up all the letters that have descenders on them. Is that so wrong?

My fear of clowns is well documented.

But apparently I didn't always have the same phobia of these psychotic killing machines that I do now. Because as I continue to scan and catalog pictures from my childhood, I am seeing clowns everywhere.

They're sneaking around in the background...

Or placed next to me...

Or even sitting on my face...

And yet these photos show no sign of the trauma I would surely experience if I were to run across these same clowns today. I can only guess that I was attacked by a murderous clown sometime in my early teens, and have blocked the incident from memory. Now only the fear remains, not the experience which caused it.

Kind of like the George W. Bush presidency. As the days pass, I can barely remember all the horrific details... just the overwhelming feeling of sheer terror and dread that they imprinted on my psyche.

I should probably seek professional help, but I don't think any amount of therapy is going to drive Karl Rove from my head. And I don't suppose it takes a psychological genius to figure out what my worst nightmare would be...

If Karl Rove ever joins the circus, I may never sleep again.

Though Rove did join FOX News, which is pretty much the same thing as the circus... just without the fresh-roasted peanuts, a trapeze, the big top, and somebody with a shovel to scoop up all the shit that the animals keep dropping all over the place.

Great. One more thing to keep me awake at night.

I do not do well with heights, and being too far above the earth bothers me more than it should. Much more. Usually, this isn't much of an issue for people like me, because you just avoid absurdly tall places. If, for example, your frisbee gets stuck on the roof, you don't grab the nearest ladder and charge on up to get it... you instead find the nearest child and pay him $2 to risk death and dismemberment by climbing up that ladder for you. Children are fearless, especially when it comes to money, so this isn't much of a challenge unless their annoying parents are hanging around.

There is one problem with this strategy, however, and that's if you are somebody who travels often.

Because travelers come to a realization very quickly: Most of the Cool Stuff is Tall.

When you arrive home from Paris, let's say, the first thing that people ask is "Ooh! Did you go up the Eiffel Tower??" From then on out, it doesn't matter what you say, because no excuse you offer is good enough...

• "No, I most certainly did not! I loath tourist traps such as the Eiffel Tower!"
• "No, unfortunately, the line was too long and I didn't have time."
• "No, I heard somebody puked on the observation deck, and I was wearing new shoes."
• "No, David Copperfield made it disappear the day I was there."
• "No, terrorists had taken over the Eiffel Tower with a nuclear bomb in an elevator. Fortunately, a man in a red cape managed to fly the elevator into space where it exploded and released three super-powered prisoners that were trapped in an alien dimension who then tried to take over the earth (perhaps you read about it in the papers)... and they then closed the tower for repairs, darn-it anyway!" *

Any attempt to disguise the fact that you're a big baby when it comes to tall places will ultimately be rejected with something like "How could you go to Paris and not go up the Eiffel Tower? Are you stupid?" Which is why I ultimately face my fears of plummeting to my death and go up the damn tower (or building or landmark or cathedral or cliff or helicopter or whatever the hell else places devise to terrorize people).

And so I've been up the Space Needle. The Gateway Arch. The Sears Tower. Hancock Tower. The World Trade Center. The Empire State Building. Splash Mountain. The Grand Canyon. The Waimea Canyon. Bryce Canyon. The Cologne Cathedral. Petronas Towers. Tokyo Tower. Yokohama Landmark Tower. The Buckets of Death. The Stratosphere. The Sagrada Familia. The London Eye. The Tower Bridge. Olympic Tower. CN Tower. The Tower of Terror. The Capilano Suspension Bridge. The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. Coit Tower. Shanghai Tower. The Peak. Mary's Bridge at Neuschwanstein. St. Peter's Basilica. St Paul's Cathedral. St. Mark's Campanile. The Monument to the Discoveries. The Holmenkollen Ski Jump. The Cliffs of Santorini. AND YES, THE FUCKING EIFFEL TOWER! Just to name a few off the top of my head.

And I could tell you that they were all just bloody fantastic experiences and gave my life new meaning... but thinking back to each experience, what I probably remember most is being scared out of my freakin' mind.

And now there's a new "Tallest Building in the World" that's opened up in Dubai. So when I eventually go there (I'm guessing), I have something to look forward to...

Wheeee. I can't wait.

*It helps here if you've seen Superman II... KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!!