Chicken Hickeys

 

“ An inefficient virus kills its host. A clever virus stays with it. ”   James Lovelock

An inefficient virus kills its host. A clever virus stays with it.
James Lovelock
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/virus.html#rhDztREt7sHsuDaR.99

My Chicken Hickey has returned.

For the third time in my life now, I've had a shingles outbreak. For those who don't know what that means, basically when you get chicken pox as a kid your immune system defeats it in most places. Occasionally, they miss a spot or two and the virus goes dormant. These dormant places are next to nerves.

When you are stressed, the virus (known as zoster) sees your immune system is taxed and it wakes back up, angering the nerve and causing stripey lesions on your skin, oddly on only one side of the body. Its the same virus as chicken pox, from your initial infection as a child, but it behaves very differently and takes weeks to go away again. Unlike chicken pox, which resolves in under a week.

Some people are lucky enough to get it on their chest or even their arms. The really fucked people get it on their face and around their eyes.  Mine appears on my neck in true moderately fucked fashion. Not the best place, but at least I can still see.

It fools you by acting like its a zit. You try to pop it, nothing comes out. You think, wow thats odd.  It then gets angry and red. You think, wow I must have pissed that zit off by trying to pop it too soon. My bad Mr. Zit, I'll let to your brew a little longer, no need to get so angry. When the redness doesn't go down, you think wow my neck skin sure is sensitive. You put neosporin on it and go to bed thinking it will be gone in the morning. Wake up, its still there but theres obviously nothing in it. Shit. Ok more neosporin and vow not to touch it or pick at it that day. Wake up on day three. Its bigger. You put some make up over it and think what. the. hell It's a good thing I'm not dating.  Day four rolls by and its now long and red and really raised. Its brought a friend with it today. The friend is a red flag. You finally remember, oh yeah I'm carrying Zoster. Wee fucking wee. I can stop saying wow now.

Then the bastard starts to itch. If  you are really lucky, it will give you horrendous nerve pain in your jaw and teeth like it did the second time I had it. You can't scratch it, cause well, its your fucking neck and the skin there is like rice paper and we aren't trying to make the spot bigger by raking our flesh off.

The best you can do is stand in the shower with your neck up to the nozzle and let 130deg water hit it for an hour to kill the itch. How do kids do this chicken pox shit?? I can't imagine my whole body feeling like that. I can however, remember my mother screaming at me frantically to stop scratching while my sister and I sat in the bathtub. Hey sis,  you know how you say you're too young to remember all the fun stuff we did together as kids? Well thats the kind of things you missed.


Far worse things are to come however. See, the first few days the thing looks like a zit. Hell it even fools me at first as I just illustrated. The subsequent days it looks like a bad evil zit to the general public. The kind people will notice and feel sorry for you, but not say anything about. Or maybe they think you picked at it like some meth addict. Who knows. The point is they try to ignore it.  After all acne is sad, and you are to be pitied at this point..

Thing is when we hit about 7 days in, it will look like a hickey. I'll know when I've arrived at that point because the comments will start. Generally they are people I know or kinda know and they get a free science lession about the life cycle of chicken pox. But the bad comments always come from people I don't know...

 The first time I had shingles. I was a cashier at Petsmart. I helped hundreds of people a day and the looks I was getting were quite spectacular. I was about 20 years old, pretty, and in a menial job so it was plausible that I'd come to work like that. This guy made a joke about my hickey and what a fun night I must have had. (which is ironic because I'm pretty certain the volatile relationship with my then boyfriend is what triggered it) Har har. I told him it wasn't a hickey it was just acne from hell. (I didn't know at the time what shingles was and still had bad skin back then). He laughed and basically called me a liar. I insisted. He laughed harder. I insisted again. He laughed.


There's no real moral to that story except that some guys are jerks who will laugh at you.

The second time I had shingles, It was just after my split from Kev and my stress levels from moving repeatedly and dealing with a freaked out diarhea dog and a screaming-destroy-the-carpet-lost-your-deposit-cat were sky high.  Thus It got much larger and eventually looked like a bonafide "rash" and only one person commented on it, and not to my face. This time I was preemptive however and told everyone that I had a thing. It was going to grow. It wasn't contagious, and no I didn't make out with an overzealous teenager.  He was able to explain on my behalf to the commenter.

This time remains to be seen. I take peace in the fact that its really uncommon to have this more than three times tops. But then again it was uncommon for me to have it as a young adult anyway, so perhaps I'm just a freak of nature.

 Either way, I like talking about my odd bits, chronic dormant viruses and all.

But if I have to defend myself as "not having a hickey" at 31 years old. I may have to smack a' bitch. Or at least rub my neck on them.

That is all.

Job Opening; Must enjoy Feces.

There is a joke I always make, well not really a joke, more of a truth I poke fun at on a regular basis.. Whenever people apply to any animal related job they always put "I love animals" on the application. Som' girls even get cutesy and put little hearts. This is followed generally with a list of their pets, I suppose to really prove that they "love animals"

The longer the list, the more they seem to think this proves they "love animals". The person reading the application may even be duped into this. WOW this person is perfect! They really LOVE animals, look they have 50 of them!

Its at this point I want to remove my ears. Generally with plastic spoons. Your application is gagworthy, and let me tell you why.

Firstly, if you're putting "I love animals" on an application to a petstore. You are an unoriginal idiot. At petsmart we would have STACKS of applications, all staying the same thing in that same space. I LUVZ DEMS. Way to stand out of the crowd. We'd actually pull the two or three out of the stacks of hundreds that said som'thing different and call those people, no matter how crap the rest of the ap was.

Its also a pretty obvious statement isn't it? If you were applying for a mechanic position, would you put "I LOVE CARS"? Or at a grocery store "OMG I JUST LUVS FUD"

Sounds moronic now right?


Secondly, here is what I hear when I hear (lol) "I love animals"


"I HATE PEOPLE ".


Or...

"Im socially retarded and can't make friends so I have pets instead"


keep in mind, both these things are valid life choices. I used to describe myself as "hating people" at various crossroads. But here's the thing, tell me you hate people on an application for retail I get images of conversations gone awry and me having to babysit you. I'm not maternal. I barely want to train you and explain where the bathroom is. I don't want to have to re-raise you and teach you how to talk to and/or be polite to people. Teaching you to interact with humans was your parents job, and if they failed, guess what? You're an adult now and its your responsibility. Congrats.

I don't want to have to save you from pushy or irrate customers because you have no backbone because the only real world convos you have had are with fluffy and whiskers. I was socially retarded at one point too, but I fixed it. You should get on that.

In short, you are either rude or a doormat, most likely.


The other thing that statement doesn't tell me, is how you feel about feces, blood, death, bedding, food for the animals etc. Petsmart would actually hire people who "loved animals" but were too squeemish to clean up after them. Or too lazy. These questions were conveniently left out at interview time, probably because the moron manager "loves animals" just as much as you do.

Another note is, as it turns out "I LOVE ANIMALS" 99% of the time is a conditional statement. Oh why o' why must you all lie to me? Conditional As in "I love the furry animals" Or I love snakes, but not frogs" or "I love the animals that are friendly but the aggressive ones leave me wimpering" etc etc.

 I'm sorry, to me "I love animals" means, I love all animals with either no or very rare exception. If you can't pick up a roach, or restrain a guinea pig, I have news for you Steve Irwin, you should be working the register.


So in closing, next time you see that space that says "why do you want to work here" say som'thing about your work ethic. Your punctuality. Your ability to get along with coworkers etc.

Or be humorous and just flat out say you like cleaning feces, being bitten, and dealing with ignorant people all day for a living. Because honestly, thats the job you're really applying for. ;)

Pre-screen the insanity out, for my sanity. Thanks

I've been working 50+ hours a week, not including the long commute. Which is very draining on any person.

I listen to NPR in the car and it removes the last bit of energy out of my exhausted mind.

OR

I listen to music and MUST sing along, which exhausts me physically. Need six pack abs? That's how I get 'em.

All while my head analyzes what happened at class. This seems to be an over stimulation problem, not an anxiety problem. I have these obsessive play by play thoughts regardless of what occurred and the tone of what occurred.


I've been training A LOT of dogs, and people really. I love my clients. Honestly. I like many of them more than their dogs. Which is som'thing I feel insane saying.

Its just such an endless sea of ignorance though. I feel like I can't do enough.

I'm getting the mildest clients dog training has to offer philosophically. I mean, these people are already pre-screened for buy-in to the positive methods. I've heard the word "dominance" seriously twice, and both times it took a gesture and a sentence and they were back on board.  I'm really really lucky in this, and honestly, I don't think I could do the job otherwise, I don't know how other trainers do it.

Sooo many reactive dogs. So many. So many well meaning, confused and frustrated owners. I feel for them, truely. Even when they come in yanking on the dog, you can see the exasperation on their face and the hopelessness in their voices. The frustration in the "what have you tried" conversation. These people love their dogs but are completely lost.



Anyway, just here to write down my thoughts. So I can leave them here, instead of thinking about them in the car while I sing myself into cramps.

Thinking, or feeling?

Forget the idea of alpha and dominance, that I don't buy into anyway...but the idea of dogs living in "packs" also makes me want to peel off my eyelids every time som'one uses it to explain behavior.


My dogs live together, they eat together, they hang out. They play, they share things, they chase each other. What a lovely little pack right?

Most people see a group of dogs in a home and think that, wow look they formed a pack.

Here's the thing.... My house has doors. My yard has a fence. My dogs hang out because they have too. Not because they want to. They get along because I've intro'd them correctly, given them each enough space they don't feel crunched and I've trained them to put up with, or even like, through countercondtioning, the other dogs habits they find annoying.

The dogs didn't "form" anything. I went out, acquired them, and now force them to live together. Kinda a new perspective on animal ownership eh?

if I left my gate open, and I wasn't here. They would wander off. I can't really say who would stick around, and who would leave, but with so many smells and things to do, I can say staying nearby is pretty boring. I imagine Tippy going the furthest, she gets so intense when she finds a scent.

Ironically, Tippy is the most attached to us, IMO. Yet, she'd be the first to bail.

I don't really envision them staying together either...maybe run down the same road until a split, and then, each engrossed in their own interest, part ways.


There are ALOT of stray, and dare I say feral even, dogs here. I see them alone, I see them in groups...BUT I always see them in DIFFERENT groups, or I see group members ALONE and then back again, but with a different group. They don't stay together. I've seen it with my own eyes. I don't need to travel to Romania, or to the Mexicans dumps. Its happening here. Right here in Socal.

Iam not a leader. Iam a resource. Just like a stray learns a house will provide food, since my dogs do not free roam, they have learned I provide food. Or attention, or access to things, etc. The dogs stay with me, not because they respect me as a pack leader. But because they need me, on a physical, or emotional level to survive.

Perhaps its the logical side of me that can say that, and not feel any ill will towards the dogs, and can not feel that cheapens the relationship we have. Truth is truth tho, truth doesn't not cheapen anything.

I tend to see things in a mechanical way, and not romanticize everything. Pack leader is a romantic title. Unfortunately, while I have no problem with romantic notions, in and of themselves...the over romanticising of ideas such as this one, can be to the detriment of our beloved dogs.