All those years of taking steroids… the clear and the cream and all that shit… how did Barry Bonds do it?
I’ve been putting a steroid cream on my poison ivy rash for six days now and my arm is all swollen and sore. My upper arm is so swollen it actually hurts a little. If Bonds was using crap like this for years, he must have been as swollen as… well… he must have been as swollen and gross as he actually looked. Lets all think back to the middle of the aughts decade and remember how bloated and cartoony Bonds looked. In just six days I’m already feeling a smidge like that.
I am a weak, weak man. Last night I had a moment where I gave in to the poison ivy and scratched a spot on my arm really hard. I took off a layer of skin or so and drew some blood. Ouch. I went to the bathroom to clean it up and while I was there I did it again, right on the worst spot. I scratched hard. I’m pretty sure I took two or three pounds of skin and left a bloody, gory mess. The whole scratching fail lasted for maybe 4 seconds but when it was done it looked like a horror movie set.
Ouch.
Blood, puss, gore. Gross.
It looks and feels a little better now, but it still doesn’t look or feel good. How long is this going to last? Who knows. I do know that if I keep giving in to the itch like that it’s going to last a lot longer than it should.
My major league baseball debut has to be imminent. On day three of juicing like a gym rat, my right arm is pretty huge. Of course it’s actually just swollen a little and my skin is so screwed up it feels like it’s pulled tight. Poison Ivy, you know? There are a couple of spots where the rash is actually leaking a little. How gross is that? Whatever, I am huge like Barry Bonds now. Get ready for some seriously long home runs. That garage across the street from Fenway Park is in big trouble.
The Red Sox are playing right now. When the radio broadcast came back from commercials for the bottom of the third inning, the bumper music was Rush – 2112. Sure, we’re losing 2-0 in the third, but Rush will pull us out of it. Sure it’s probably going to be our 10th consecutive loss, but we’ve got Rush.
As I was tying the words, “losing 2-0”, Rafael Devers hit a two run home run to tie the game. Okay. Someone is listening to me. Sure, I’m not going to hit a 500 million dollar lottery…..
……..
………
Nothing?
Oh well. four hours and 45 minutes until I can juice again.
My little bottle of steroid cream is already running low. I’ve had six doses of juice from it. I might get one more, two if I stretch it. I do get one refill with my prescription, but I was kinda hoping it would last longer than it has. Unless, of course, I won’t need it any longer. It does look a little better than it did 24 hours ago.
Calamine Lotion is kind of a dick. It’s not a lotion, it’s a liquid and it splashes and spills everywhere and it stains everything it touches pink. I’m going to be doing some clothes shopping once all this bullshit is over.
I took a vacation day today. Originally it was so I could be around for my mother’s second dose of chemo. Then I was going to use the day to go to the doctor and get my thumb and my rash looked at. Now… with everything else done, and knowing that poison ivy can be irritated by sunlight and wanting to keep my tendinitis wrapped up, I think I am going to be inside the house and not playing the guitar all day. That and wondering how the chemo is going. I guess I’m just going to spend the day binge watching Agents of Shield.
What was I talking about?
We used instacart yesterday to get some itch relieve stuff. It came in a spray. The spray gets everywhere and it smells pretty powerful. Let’s find an alternative, shall we? Instacart just brought us a cream. I can put that cream on top of the steroid cream that hopefully will clear up the steadily growing nightmare that is my skin right now. I hope it works. The evil spray shit kinda worked… kinda. Kinda made more of a mess than anything else. We will see.
I haven’t taken my photo a day pic yet today. A little part of me wants to take a picture of the rash, but that would be way too gory and gruesome for the poor unsuspecting Flickr viewers. I mean… it’s really gross right now and while I was hoping a couple of doses of juice yesterday would help start to clear things up… nope. It’s worse than it was yesterday.
Instead, how about a picture of my sweet ace bandage. I’ll take it off when I need to play guitar.
Poison Ivy… like… what the hell, dude. It’s a global freakin’ pandemic and you stumble on some Poison flippin’ Ivy and smear it all over yourself like some kind of low IQ lab rat? Could you be any dumber? You were a Boy Scout for crying out loud, you should know better.
Jen bought some over the counter anti-itch spray. It’s helping a little, but I think I put it on a little too heavy. It got into my nose and into my throat and it’s icky. Ugh, if icky is the price of less itchy, then I think I can live.
There may be an upside to all of this though. As I mentioned in my random post yesterday, the Boston Red Sox are monumentally bad. Just… atrociously bad. Seemingly unrelated, but maybe very much related, the doc at the urgent care sent me home with a prescription to fight the Poison Ivy I was dumb enough to rub all over myself. The prescription is for a steroid cream. Isn’t that what Barry Bonds used? The Clear and The Cream?
Could it be? Could it be that I am going to take the same thing Barry Bonds took (no, it’s not) when he cheated his way to the title of Major League Baseball Home Run King? Do you think that the Boston Red Sox might be calling me soon? I used to pitch in youth baseball when I was like 14 and I can’t be any worse than the pitchers they are getting slaughtered with now, right? Steroids worked for Roger Clemens. I mean, yeah his skill level without the steroids was higher than mine (a little) to begin with, but if I take steroids too…. I could win 20 games AND hit 40 home runs for them.
Give me a minute to goop this stuff on and then give me a call, Red Sox!
It’s Sunday. My thumb hurts, and the rash on my arm is bigger than it was yesterday. I’m falling apart completely. Quarantine is finally breaking me, it seems. So what’s a red head to do? How about some reflection on the state of his world? Also known as a post full of random stuff? Sounds good to me!
Today is kind of a big day. Symbolically, if not literally. Today is the last weekend day that the kids are at our house before Bellana goes back to school. We’re going all out. Jen is making her favorite dinner tonight. Harry is making her favorite dessert right now. I’m so worried about the future. I want her to go and have a great second year at college, but I don’t want her to go and be at risk of catching the plague. I want her to stay here and be safe. Basically all the same arguments I made last August, with a few pandemical twists. Mostly I just don’t want to miss her again. Selfish, yes, but it’s still true. At the same time, if they can keep the Covid bubble closed and stop her and the rest of the students from being exposed, then I want her to have a great semester. I want her to have a ball. She doesn’t leave for a little over a week, but her last weekend is a dad weekend so we’re giving her a send off a little early.
I feel a little better about my step son’s school plans now that I know he’s only going in person half of the time instead of all the time. I guess you could say I feel half better than full bad? Get it? I would feel full better if he was going full remote, but that’s probably going to require an outbreak in the high school and I don’t want that either. I want him home and safe.
Sports: The Bruins won their first Tuukka Rask free game. They are up two games to one in their first round series against the Whale. I have confidence in Jaroslav Halak, that’s not the issue. I just had more confidence in Rask. A Cup win seems less likely with Halak carrying them, but really given the way they played in the first few games into the return to play, I had lost most of my Cup confidence anyway. We’ll see how far they can go. I’d like to at least beat the friggin’ Whale.
The Red Sox are utterly atrocious. They are very close to being on pace for the lowest win/loss percentage in franchise history, and the franchise has been around for about 120 years or so…. that means they are really, really bad. We all knew it was coming though. They have one major league starter in their pitching rotation and he’s probably a #4 on a real staff. Maybe a #3. Chris Sale, Eduardo Rodriguez, and Nathan Eovaldi together is a nice start for a rotation, but with Sale out getting Tommy John surgery, and E-Rod out with Covid-19 related heart issues, that just leaves Eovaldi and a bunch of minor leaguers and that is a recipe for complete disaster. Add a few hitters having epically bad seasons so far and you have a team that has a good shot at the #1 overall draft pick next year.
Music… 50/90 is 42% complete. I just added songs #20 and 21. I’ve got seven songs with rhythm guitars down that are waiting for lyrics and vocals. That’s it. 28 songs total so far. I need to get to 34 by the end of the month (50/90 takes place over three months and 50/3=16.67). I also want to have a 10 song (at least) album in a month for August. Five of the completed songs were started and finished this month, and three of the unfinished songs were started this month too. Those three are the top of the priority list right now, and I have to keep the new stuff coming so I don’t fall behind. I feel like I am way behind on things, even though I’m really just at the halfway point.
A bird just flew into the window, about two feet away from me. I hope he’s okay. It looked like it might have been a glancing blow. More like he bounced off than crashed.
We applied for vote by mail ballots recently, and our 9/1 Primary election ballots were delivered a couple of days ago. Will there still be a functioning USPS for us to mail them back? The shit stain of a president admitted publicly that he’s hamstringing the post office to tamper with the November election, and the response from those who stand as a check and balance against him? They went on vacation. Also, there is a global pandemic that is killing a thousand Americans a day so they went on vacation. If you still think your government represents you, then that should show you the truth.
That’s kinda a bummer note to end on. Here, let me make it worse by adding a couple of new songs. That should push us all off the ledge, right?
I have been in three or four discussions today on the topic of kids going back to school during the pandemic.
One started with a parent at a town meeting saying that her kid going back to school in person was worth the risk of two kids dying. It’s only two dead kids, she said.
Another started with, police and fire departments need to go back to work so teachers should go back too.
I just can’t believe that actual human people made these arguments in all seriousness. I mean, it’s only two dead kids, right? What’s the worry? It is infuriating! Fire departments go to work so teachers should too? Do teachers take the job with the understanding that it might cost their lives? I’m not a fire fighter, but I’m pretty sure they do. Likewise, I’m not a teacher but I’m going to take a wild guess that the answer is an emphatic and total NO! No they don’t! If you think a teacher should risk his or her life for their profession then FUCKING PAY THEM FOR IT. Again, I’m not a teacher but I am willing to bet that teachers don’t get hazard pay.
It’s only two dead kids, she said. Well ma’am, what if one of the two dead kids is yours? Is it worth the risk then? You fucking moron? Is it worth it if your kid dies, or is it only worth it if some other mothers’ kids die?
Have we as a people always been this evil? How could so many of us not have noticed?
Oh… and I won’t use that over sized first letter thing again, okay?
Dad’s home from the hospital. It’s kidney stones and major dehydration. It took a while to handle hydrating him. It’s okay now. I stayed overnight Saturday into Sunday so that my mother wouldn’t be alone. My sister took last night. My brother is there now, but everyone is home and this ordeal is over, we hope.
I am pleased-ish to announce that I can still pull an all nighter like a boss. I woke up at about 6:00am or so on Saturday. The next time I slept was about 4:30am on Sunday morning, but I woke up again at about 5:15am. At noon, I sat down to watch the Bruins game while my mother napped. I saw the start of the Canadian National Anthem. Next thing I knew, Oshe was picking Chara’s pocket and scoring with six seconds left in the first. I was out for another 40-50 minutes, I think. Later, as we were getting ready for a shift change, I packed up all my stuff and sat down at the dining room table. Next thing I knew, Dad was coming in the door. I have no idea how long I was out, but it couldn’t have been more than 15-30 minutes. After I got home, I stayed up for a little while. I gave up the fight at a little past 8:30pm. That’s 38 hours, with only a couple of very short, less than an hour each, naps.
Like a boss.
I woke up for a few minutes around 10:00pm, then again for a few minutes at about 3:45am, and then again for good a little after 7:00am. I checked SleepWatch on Sunday and there was never enough data available to track. This morning, it tracked nine hours and 45 minutes of sleep. I needed it. I’m still a little sleepy, and my head isn’t quite straight. I think it’ll be another early to bed night tonight and then I should be okay.
Inside the Red Head's Head 