The love of my life celebrated his birthday today...still blond and in great shape for his non-existant mid-life crisis. I got him a Buck knife, just like I did for Christmas...he has decided to collect Buck knives, but only the ones that are stamped "Made in the USA"-not those misleading Bucks which are stamped "Made for Distribution in the USA", cuz they stamped 'em that way when they made 'em in China. Just like every Friday, he took his Ma to Wally World (hence his adversion to "Made in China"), and then, to McDonald's for early dinner(I'm sure she told him that their fish sandwiches were "bullocks") just as he takes her every single Friday. He is good to his Ma. 'tis a sign of a good man...then, he came straight home. Both of us awoke with splitting headaches this AM...neither of us could barely function. His headache faded away around 4.My own pain of a scale of 8, diminished to a 4, around 4...I are pounding in my head as I are pounding on the keys right now...but I wanna check in with the Stream folk, while I can. I've only worn this (itchy) patch on my arm for 4 days. It ain't done me any more favors than the good doctor's needlework did...maybe, I just need to give it more time. It just seems like I've waited (and payed)(and prayed) enough. Maybe I will just always have headaches. I could have fared far worse, so many folks have...I saw Jean & her Ma today, they have fared far worse...her Ma is vey sick...88lbs, coughing up blood...

Tomorrow, if not in pain, I'm hitting the road to visit Khole's, an upper-class dept store that I have never set foot in before, and once I see the price tags, prob never to return...But sister Kathy gave me a $100 gift card for Christmas & I need to spend it while I'm still not-so-young. I once went to Nieman-Marcus, but just once. It was like visiting Hearst Castle...oppulance, conspicuous consumption and designer-mania tends to piss me off...We are encouraged to live beyond our means in the USA...that is something we have done to ourselves. It is a part of our youth-oriented designer disease, and I have trouble paying for this illness as well. Usually, I just don't. BUT FOLKS KEEP URGING Me to join this century & leave tie-dye in the past. BUT ME, I'm stuck in the 70's...and I don't mind. It's very comfortable place to be stuck to me. Seeing others in tye-dye always makes me smile...I hate that people judge me by my lack of fashion sense & love of ye old flower-power daze.

My good amigo, the Reverend Glorious Dan expressed his diappointment at my procrastination for not yet embarking upon his advice/gift icon of "Cher, the Babe in her Red Truck'...The resembelence is quite startling, and I hope to find time to implement the Glorious advice...have patience, Harold...I shall try, and try again...I learned how to make paragraphs...but, it's been a hectic, migrainey, inventory kind of week...and if I'm not hurting on the morrow I shall be unable to do as I wish & spend Saturday in me jammies surfing the Stream...Shopping, lunch with pregnant friend Myra Dawn & maybe visit a sister, or my other bud, Deb, a day early, so I can maybe wind up rounds a lil early come Sunday...maybe not. Time will tell.

OK..Bubba crashed around 8:30, and it is now flirting with 11pm, so I best join him. he still does not get my fascination with words, or the Stream Folk, but I still don't get football, so we are even...I am probably coming out ahead in the deal. Seems to me, anyway. Tomorrow is a new day...trouble is, it is supposed to rain which usually walks arm in arm with barometric fluctuations. This is my life, somr timed, it rules my life. SO, until we meet, again, my friends, I once again bid you lay down my sweet brothers(& sisters), lay down and rest your head, Won't you lay your head upon your Savior's breast, I love you, But Jesus loves you best, and I bid you good night, good night, good night. And I bid you good night, good night, good nite(Jerry used to sing this to my friends & I @ Jerry Garcia Band concerts-you know this tune, Marvin? Petey? Dan? here are I...still stuck in the 70's.Goodnight

But the doc prescribed them for me, anyway...I thought it was not necessary for him to say "No, it is not a Morapheine patch," when all I asked was what was in it...it is like he didn't want to tell me what I was blowing a C-note on for 4 stinking vasodialator, beta-blocker, blood pressure medicine patches. I was prepared to do verbal battle about more steroidal cervical & eye injections, when he comes outta the blue with dis unexpected angle. Ok, I'll try anything...I have a lot going good for me in my life these days...I would have had a better job w/o migraines...but, I never would have met Bubba. Long domino-effect story...if I wasn't such a loser, I might have been a winner. And that would quite possibly have been an unhappy, lonely winner's story.

My new red truck (Old Yeller) kicks proverbial butt. It is weird how there are so many people @ work (folks I generally think of as friends) who are so blatantly not happy for me...weird. I'm always happy for my friends when good things happen to them...it never occurs to me to generate bad vibes about another's good fortune...some are even bitter that Bubba & I have found love. I wouldn't want to live my life ever-ready with a negative vibe.

Evil-dude? He ain't really happy for me...esp. since the doc came up with these stinking patches. But he does have an appt w/the same pain clinic this wk...so he has been inspired to go out & take charge of his pain instead of imitating "Moochie." That works.

I was @ work early this AM(& will be early tomorrow due to inventory), and encountered some of the girls working the night shift. They were most rude, crude, demanding and unpleasant. The rudest eventually felt self-concious about her behavior explaining that she had a migraine & nothing would help her until the liquor stores open later on in the morning, and she can go get herself a bottle of tequilla. Man, talk about being your own worst enemy...she must really hate herself... I shudder just to think of tequilla and a migraine. I guess it takes all kinds of people to make the world go around. That was a tough crowd(she was with several other unfriendly ladies),& I sincerely hope we can avoid one another in the future.

But that's not the me I want to be, really. One of my best friends is a tough lil girl that I befriended @ the factory I worked at before this one. She'd have hissy-fits all the time, but never directed at me. She was always nice to me. But she is so alone working @ that factory. She doesn't hang out w/anybody, and she has worked there for over a decade. They call her "Mean Jean" behind her back, & to her face, as she is a hard worker & gives the slackers some verbal constructive criticism rather loudly & often. But she is always so right on, she cracks me up, and has always has me laughing out loud. But she doesn't hang out with anyone, ever. I used to see her on her breaks, sitting alone in her truck, sitting in the smoke-shack alone. I didn't get it for the longest time. We started hanging out (I even took her to see Santana & she be into Country big time) and then,one day, she broke down crying...she has no friends there, as everyone distanced themseves from her a few yrs ago when her little boy had been swinging on a rope hanging from a tree, playing Tarzan, and he accidently hung himself. He was 7 yrs old. She told me when she came back to work in the tragedy's aftermath, people just stopped socializing with her. She says she figures that there are lots of reasons why...they didn't know what to say or how to say it, some blamed her for having a rope attached to her tree in the back yard,or whatever. They just distanced themselves from her. She is a great girl, and folks just avoid her. I try to go over and see her almost every day...for her break(otherwise she takes her break alone) or catch her when she gets off of work. We laugh & talk for a little bit, then go our separate ways. It isn't hard @ all...Her Ma is my age, looks 80, is dying of cancer and is a paranoid skizophrenic with a cavalcade of many other psychiatric disorders. Jeannie is the only child Pearl had (4), that takes care of her & looks after her. Jeannie says "I don't really have time for friends anyway," but we both seem to make time for each other. That is the kind of person I want to be...but, I just don't get the same kind of vibe from the tequilla migraine girl as I get from Jeannie. I'm glad I took the time & effort to be Jeannie's friend, but I must be getting old as I just do not have the energy to befriend that chick on nights, no matter what her problems may be. Getting old, and getting cold, I guess.

OK...gotta crash, get up early & go back Jack and do it again on the morrow. Catch y'all later...Peace & love...all you need is love, everybody, all you need is love, love is all you need(or so I'm told by older & wiser men than I)

My life.. .Mondays are frantic,& when a rainy Sunday night is chased away by a gray Monday morning, followed by a partly cloudy skies in the after-noon, are all climates rapidly changing & evoking a jumpy-barometric pressure-go-round day all the live long day.

As, expected, I awoke with a bad headache & ususally,& when I wake up with a bad headache, it stays with me most of the day. I took a nap after work, and was happy to be unconsious for awhile. Now, after being awake for a coupla of hours, I AM READY TO GO BACK to BED CUZ I am still very tired & the headache is pretty much banging away up there, all around up there...unexpectedly, it is centered on the left aspect of my, head, neck & eye...all the doc's steroids that have been injected my into my trigger points is on the right side of my cervical area. I see the doc tomorrow & ensure that he answers my questions and listens to me whine that his pain blocks last a max of 2-21/2 months, and I just don't want to blow another 5Large on another 2 months relief in a yet, another life- threatening proceedure....hope I do not have to argue & negotiate with him. I sincerely hope I have no headches tomorrow when I am trying to deal with the pain doc. I have a lot of drama, and ain't lookin for more.Inventory, headaches, life in general.d-r-a-m-a.

Tired old headbanger...peace, out. Love y'all.

Bubba is only semi-concious after walking the dogs left behind when Rex & I hit the road for our rounds @ noon. They walked a fair piece,as Bubba & Ramble-On-Rose(my weiner-retriever) are both limping, and Boxer, Peggy Sue is passed out, not waking up for nuthun...after they walked, they came home and over-dosed on football...Bubba is mumbling a lot, not making much sense, but determined to finish watching the 2nd half, despite the facts are that he needs to go to bed.

So do I. From noon to 6pm, Rex & I visited Myra & Deb. (Billyjones met these pretty lady friends of mine when he visited a couple three years ago to celebrate my i/2 Century Birthday). Myra is 4 1/2 mos pregnant, due to have her baby around the 1st of the July, so very close to my birthday on the 5th. Deb is obsessed with renovating her house, doing most of the carpentry herself, she has lost a lot of weight, still smokes clove cigarettes and is happily seperated from her depressive, dirty-talking, drunken husband. We 3 may go out for sushi, or shopping next Sat. I got a Khole's gift card & I've never been in a Khole's ever before. Not ever, not once. The adventure continues. Then, Rex & I went to see Mom & I took her outside so she could do some smokin', and I could do the jokin'. Took her back to her room got her back to bed & comfy-cozy, visited sister Kathy & spouse, Bob. Called Donnato's for pizza, picked it up & ran it out to the countryside nursing home, where I rescued Dad & Rene from their Sunday institutional card board flavoured normal meal, rendevoused with sister Jan, while at the nursing home, did some sisterly pizza feedding for the folks, followed up with Hershey bars, kissed * hugged them one & all(we are a kissy-face family. Alway have been, always will be. Life is too short not to kiss it & hug it whenever possible....

I got a lot done. I let my light shine all day long. now, I look forward to a long winter's nap. It's all good. And I am so readyto crashola, and I bid you good night, good night, good night.

Rex(Mom's sweet dog that I happily ended up owning), is so excited. He knows that it is Sunday, and duty calls. He is trying to be patient, cuz we don't leave until "CBS Sunday Morning" is over, multiple cups of coffee have been consumed, and a quick hot shower completed. A
couple of months ago, he would have been sulking, hiding from me, not wanting to go, confused about where I might leave him. Now that he understands that we spend the day visiting various family & friends & he gets to come home to Bubba at the end of the day, he is anxious to get it going on...

And things are better for me. Mom is still in a good space as long as she can get her cigarette. Dad is cranky, but trying to be brave in spite of his tendency for tears. Rene is painfully soft spoken & weak. It used to be a lot tougher than it is right now to make my Sunday rounds..some day, it will again, become tougher again. But right here, right now, I am rolling with the proverbial punches to get to what is real, with only light, sporadic doses of drama. Time marches on, and these days, Cher be truckin, like a doo-dah woman.