Our here now medical system in these united states

Since I had a visit to the E.R. brought by paramedic ambulance last week, I’m experiencing the classic aftereffect symptom: financial panic. I’m tensed for the blow when the bill arrives, prepared for my insurer to deny everything, ready to fight collection agencies and complain to commissioners and end up paying the whole thing outright on my credit card at 14% interest.

The old joke about bleeding heart liberals is that the difference between a liberal and a conservative is a police report. Good point; no one likes getting their ass kicked, and it doesn’t do much for your progressive values to have the pain and fight-or-flight chemicals running.

I’d add another rule, though. The difference between a conservative and a liberal is a hospital admission. Prosperous middle-class Americans who’ve never been seriously ill and have confidence in their medical plans are fooling themselves. They’re all only one illness away from total financial ruin. The insurer will deny claims, the hospital will press them, a collection agency will buy them, and no one will forgive anything. Welcome to Ayn Rand Memorial Medical Center, folks!

My pharmacist is now required by law to counsel me if the prescription is new. This is a fine idea in theory, since physicians don’t know everything about a drug and don’t take the time to discuss it. In practice, it’s a joke. I go to a 24-hour pharmacy in a drugstore chain and it’s understaffed. With my latest, I waited ten minutes before a rumpled and worried Indian man rushed out and said “It is diuretic. Do you have questions?” and then ran off. This is his usual practice.

When I got home I looked at the bottle and there was a sticker on it saying that I should stay out of direct natural or artificial sunlight. Sure enough, looking up the stuff revealed that it increases sensitivity to the sun and that special attention to sunscreen and protective clothing is strongly advised. What if the clerk hadn’t put the sticker on the thing, or I hadn’t looked? People around here have the hobby of lying in the sun.

Requiring professionals to do something vital and then giving them no time to do it doesn’t work. The invisible hand just punched me in the nuts again.

Brain bad. Books good.

Adderall holiday today. I’m predictably more sleepy and less focused, but I didn’t have much to do and being focused is tiring. I have been noticing a few side effects and over-tuned senses, etc. on this dose of the stuff so I’m going to ask to go down to 15 mg when I see him next week.

Being on a diuretic is tiring, too! Not only do I pee about 12 times a day right now, but I’m lightheaded and woozy and I keep having attacks of exhaustion when I have to sit down right now for about ten minutes.

Went to Mother’s to get 50 mg tablets of niacin (they’re hard to find, everyone wants to sell you 500 mg niacin or 100 mg each of a bunch of B complex). I managed to defeat their Huge Wall of Possibly Fraudulent Supplements and find it. I wonder why there are 20 different brands of vitamin? I bet if you’re a vitamin freak you have your special brand and think every other brand is suspect.

I’m not cut out to be a hypochondriac; this is all a huge pain. I think someone who would enjoy this should take it over.

I finished the biography of Corvo and I’m working on an article about him, because he’s so amazing. Now I’ve just started the new Eco and I already love it. And I just got Firbank’s “Five Novels”. Mmmm.

Florence Foster Jenkins died for your sins

I spent almost two hours last night trying to find a song. I only knew some of the lyrics, and the repeated name “Mr. Jones”, and how it sounded. The only memory I had of the song was that I saw Milo Binder (obscure) perform it as a cover live at a Rhino Records show in about 1989. It turns out it’s a Bee Gees song. Fortunately, it’s “New York Mining Disaster 1941” from Bee Gees 1st, which is a pop classic that I should have remembered. Searching for “Mr. Jones” of course brings me results about Counting Crows, NOFX, and Bob Dylan in about that order.

I meant to do a lot of photography today but the day started real slow. I’ll shoot some late afternoon stuff and try to get started earlier tomorrow. Maybe a combo hike/photo in the Upper Bay.

Can anyone point me to a guide to using the Camera RAW format? I really like the idea of controlling all the white balance etc. but when I do so it all gets washed out when I try to prepare the images for the web. I have no idea whether what I’m trying to do is impossible, or I’m just messing up.

I’ll live without your touch and die within your reach

The Death Clock was kind enough to tell me the hour of my passing, which is September 26, 2037. This would make me the same age as my father when he died. Has a nice literary completeness to it, although I’m not a huge fan of the well-made plot. I’d like a twist.

Saw Jason C. last night. He’s now a successful business guy in a suit. When I first met him he always had a painful job of some kind, mostly food service. For example, he worked at a rental yard where the cars were so bad that at least one of them spontaneously caught fire in the parking lot.

We were discussing one of his previous bad jobs, which was at the Rainforest CafĂ©. For those who are unfamiliar with this chain, it is a crappy theme restaurant that pretends to be a jungle. The waiters are all “guides”, you’re on an “adventure”, and there are pseudo animatronic creatures that make noise and move around. It’s a cacaphoneteria of hokey sound effects. People bring young children there who go into panic attacks. The gorilla breaks down a lot. You spend $100 for 4 people and get sandwiches. You get the picture.

Anyway there’s a huge aquarium there which stretches around part of the restaurant and is full of various colorful fish to amuse the kiddies. Hey Timmy, Nemo went by again. On this particular night, the pump-o-tron that keeps the aquarium circulating properly crapped out and there was a sudden, violent overflow of aquarium water and aquarium residents. Cold fishy water and an assortment of fish were deposited on tables, causing a shrieking mess of frightened children, angry adults, and desperate sea creatures.

The weird part, according to him, was that only that little part of the restaurant even noticed. The sensory overload of fake birds, fake gorillas, fake elephants, yelling children, and the reservation PA was able to blot out the Fishpocalypse completely while they ran around arresting escaped fish and apologizing to everyone.

Speaking of fish, the Sexual Concierge himself is working for a fish biologist right now. He’s convinced himself that because he’s a star employee there, this guy can get him the “hook up” to get into UCI Medical School so that he can learn all about fish science. Since he doesn’t yet have his associates degree even, you can’t get into public colleges with a “hook up”, you can’t go to medical school without finishing your bachelor’s first, and the UCI Medical School does not teach fish science, nobody has any idea what he means.

It turns out that the girl with the odd accent at D’s really is Irish. She’s just spent about the last year in France mostly speaking French and her accent got strange. She’s one of five young women who are touring the world on the cheap, staying a few months in each country. Right now they’re all stuffed into a 1 bedroom apartment at the Coronado and they all found jobs on 17th St. they can walk to. They just stay as long as a temporary work permit in each place and then move on. They’re all in their early 20s, very pretty, very enthusiastic, multilingual, and well-educated. She’s apparently a singer, too. In short it’s the pilot for an Aaron Spelling TV show, except for the fact that they have no money and are living in a tiny box off retail jobs. As I drove home two of them were running happily through the sprinklers on 17th in their backless summer outfits looking perfect. It was as beautiful as an ad for an unmentionable health product.