Living on the edge

We went out for a few drinks yesterday afternoon, and I commented on the bus that I was feeling a bit strange. Sort of light headed, like I'd had too much coffee, but I hadn't. We got to the pub and on the first beer it occurred to me that perhaps I'd forgotten to take all my pills this morning. I'd slept about 12 hours overnight and didn't get up until late, and couldn't remember sitting up in bed and taking them. I usually take them about 6-7am, as I get up for work at 6. The more I thought about it the more I couldn't remember taking anything.

So I said this to Simon who was rather nonchalant about it I thought. "Oh pills, pills, what pills?"  I said that I wasn't worried about the blood pressure ones as they'd do fuck all missing the morning ones, but it was the 300mg of Efexor that was the big concern. In all the time I've been taking it I've never missed a dose, such has been the importance of it in avoiding suicide. He just told me to stop worrying about it.

After a while though I started feeling really strange. Much more light headed, and scared and anxious. Couldn't see straight and my vision was very blurry. Decided now that there was no doubt I'd missed taking it and said I just had to go home. Tried to keep myself together on the bus, was agitated and impatient. And feeling emotional. It'd not be so bad had I been on a much lower dose, but as it's 300mg it's a huge thing if I miss taking it.

By the time I got home and in the door I was starting to hyperventilate and was feeling these terrible pain emotions that I'd not felt in a long time. Swallowed the two pills straight away and sat on the chair in the bedroom near the window. Couldn't help it, just started crying from how much I was feeling this pain again. Fuck, it was still there after all this time, just waiting under the surface. An unexpected visit from the pain monster. 

I ate something as well to aid the pills being digested, and after about an hour I was feeling a bit better. The experience itself though was very scary. That is how close I am to that pain still?  Just a day missing my dose and I'm that fucked? Talk about living on the edge. It'd have been a simple matter to end it in that state of mind.   

Stupid Capitalists

Well what a week! It's not every week you get the news nearly $75,000 is soon to come your way. I will be able to pay off all my debts, and it looks like about $45,000 will be left over. Now after the initial euphoria, I'm faced with what options I have with this money now.

I've thought about the Lightning Ridge thing, and although I'll definitely go up there and spend some time there with Simon for a month or so, I've decided it's just too remote a place for me to live permanently. I've thought about it before and it always comes back to the same conclusion. The medical services are completely inadequate for my needs, particularly as it takes a week to see the one doctor in town. With going on HIV meds at some point I'd be worrying about getting them out there to the chemist, or would I have to get them from the local hospital pharmacy? Who knows. It's not something that a mistake can ever be made with and to miss doses with. Simon also has only solar electricity of 12 volts, needing a generator for normal power.After 30 years in Sydney I don't think I could live like that long term.

So that leaves living in Sydney and paying $210 a week rent (currently). With $45,000 I could probably stretch that our for over a year at least if I wanted to, or maybe try to find a little part time job somewhere. Dunno. A year off sounds pretty appealing. Maybe I could even do a bit of volunteer work for some of the HIV services around the place. It'd be a nice change from what has been the endless drudgery of being a machine operator in a dying industry.

Or maybe I could buy some little place to live in the country? I doubt there'd be much available at all for that money, but it might be worth looking into. It's all up in the air right now. I'll be having a big discussion with the psychologist early next month, as he's known me since my diagnosis in 2009 and would be an impartial judge of what options would be best for me. Oh what a fuckin dilemma; how to spend $45,000!

Apart from that, some people at work weren't so happy. Those who'd not been there as long as some others of us got a much smaller payout, one with a family and the sole income provider, another with a new baby born only days before. Even my dept head got the boot, and he'd not been there very long either. 

Overall it's an example of stupid Capitalists after short term profits for shareholders, at the expense of a very profitable dept. Yes, we were making them a lot of money. But they decided it was cheaper to outsource the work and sack us all. Complete and utter greed, and like taking a wrecking ball to the company. They have sacked the only two qualified guillotine operators on the site for example, me and the other bloke. The sort of work they will have left to do they need someone who knows what they're doing. They even asked me to train one or two of them to show them how to set up a programme on the guillotine and operate it. WTF? Get fucked! They sack me telling me I'm redundant and don't need me, then they want me to train someone for my job? They obviously have no idea. And who's going to change the knife? A particular procedure twice a week that you have to know how to do it to do it safely. A metre long sharp as a razor. You have to be a tradesman to do it, simple.

Anyway it's not my problem anymore. It's been interesting though since we got taken over a while back. A lesson in how to destroy a very profitable company.  

And this is the work that is soon to be no more. I've been cutting this one for the last few days. It's 2 million in quantity, that job alone worth $80,000 and very profitable.

 

"This is beautiful"

"This is beautiful"

 

How are you Southerners?

 

All god down there darlings?

Just for you guys there in the pink, here's a really good porn site for you all. It's all free, register a username and it's free torrents.

https://www.gay-torrents.net/torrentslist.php

Why is this so funny? Any opinions?

$36,000 work windfall!

This is life changing.

Today near the end of the shift, our entire dept got called into the office for a special meeting. I get so bored with office meetings, but this one felt different and exciting from the start.

The boss guy came in and went through a power point presentation projected onto the wall. In it was a general thing about this and that, and in the end was the announcement that our entire dept was being made redundant. They were from here on going to outsource the work due to the competitive nature of the industry now, with printing companies going broke left right and centre as technology changes.

Of course that means that will have no control over quality like they do now, and in my view is a short term decision for short term profits, but hey all I could think of was how lucky I was!

As I've been there for 13 years, and as the union over those years has negotiated a very good redundancy deal, I immediately started salivating about how much I was going to get. They handed out individual envelopes to each of us with an estimate of each of ours pay out. 

I opened mine later after leaving for home. There is of course the 13 weeks service of redundancy, being at 44 weeks pay. Also an extra week of notice because I'm over 45, on top of the 4 weeks notice required. Also an extra 25% on the redundancy payment as I'm over 45 years old. The redundancy payment also doesn't get any tax at all as it's exempt from it being redundancy money. And so the grand total of my work windfall is:

I walked out of that meeting happier than I've been in years. Not only is all my debt about to be cancelled, I'm also getting $36,000 into my hand next month.

I think I've gone into some kind of orgasmic shock. I did have hopes for my 50's after the train wreck 40's, but this shit is beyond my wildest dreams. Suddenly I have options, and life isn't about work anymore. 

I've already decided to go up to Lightning Ridge and spend time with Simon there. With money I can set up a wireless internet connection with him and blog from there. And I was getting worried actually as we are so close this visit, and what it might be like without him. We've fallen into a way of sleeping together for example that's just so natural and lovely; either I lie with my ass next to his dick, or the other way around. Both involves love and closeness.

It also cost bugger all up there. No rent, no electricity bill as he's solar. The money I'm getting would last for years and years up there. I do hope it's the end of work for me. Hey, they retire at 50 in Greece right? It's just that they have to pay debts that the problem! 

He's here for a week now :)

Simon is here tonight, for a week now before he goes back home. We're cooking dinner and I need an early night, maybe him not I dunno. I was up early this morning as I couldn't sleep.

Got the whole thing together for the Australian Super. Simon is going to send it off tomorrow. 

"The nightmare is over"

When I sat with my wife in 2006 and watched her take her last breath, it was a huge sense of relief. I spoke to her when I knew she was gone, "It's over _____, the nightmare is over". Her years of pain and grief were finally at an end.

Early in 2009, I received the final email from my best friend in Florida, USA. We'd become so very close over the years on the net with daily contact. Her life had turned into hell after her husband died, and she killed herself. Her last words in that most personal of emails were "The nightmare is over".

Today the last bit of my own train wreck came to an end. I've been emotional and crying for a couple of hours now. Sitting on the side of the bed I have sobbed and sobbed, such has been the intensity of emotions. 

And at the end, when calm started falling, I realised "The nightmare is over". The train wreck is finished.

And then I realised; I'm the only one out of the three of us to survive the nightmare.

I got my Super

I can't stop crying.

 

Nearly 9 months this has taken. Taking me to a place of stress that was beyond my capacity to deal with. But finally success! I'm overwhelmed.

This is the last bit of the train wreck. I've finally got to the last wrecked carriage and done something about it. It's been at a cost yes, financially of course but more so emotionally. Readers of this blog will particularly know of the last couple of months and my inability to deal with it. It's been very hard on me.

But hey, success in the end.... 

From here is a simple procedure to send this letter to Australian Super. I'll look into that tomorrow, I can't deal with it tonight. Am just too emotional about it all.

After this, I will be debt free. A new start. 

"We Were Here"

Thanks "anonymous" for the tip. I've just finished watching it. It's available for 6 more days if anyone wants to take a look:

"We Were Here"

It struck me watching it how isolated the community was from the outside world unaffected by AIDS. How they were going through such trauma and grief, with much of the population having little or no idea of what they were experiencing.

In some ways, although much has changed since then, having and living with HIV is something very hard to understand for people who's lives are far removed from HIV risk groups. There are no words to describe how it feels to have it. You have to have it to know.

Celebrities say "I Do"

I didn't realise there were so many people involved in this.

Link

Acid stomach strategies

My stomach has settled down a lot. Simon recommended I buy some sort of thing that dissolves in water and you drink that. He gave some weird brand name that I'd never heard before, but when I went to the supermarket this was the only thing that looked like what he was talking about.

Said that it was the same sort of thing that he meant. It seems to work very well so far. Just a teaspoon full in some water, not bad tasting at all. Can take it 2-3 hours apart, which I did yesterday. My stomach was sore as fuck in the morning and I was taking Panadol as the pain was still going into my back and ribs. This Eno though settled things down more and more as the day progressed, to where in the evening I was able to eat a proper meal.

Simon's recommendation was fish. I guess he knows a lot more than me about stomach upsets being the older man! So I got a couple of pieces of fish from the delicatessen part in the supermarket. Was cheap as anything. I usually just get fish from the freezer there, but this time thought I better follow the man's instructions, he he. Had no idea what to get, so just a couple of pieces from New Zealand looked pretty safe to me. Enormous they were, and only $7 for the lot. Got them home and at dinner one piece was enough for both of us, so will have the other piece tonight. Boiled some potatoes, kumara, and vegetables in a pot, and mashed it all up with the mixer into like a bubble and squeak thing, along with butter and some grated cheese from New Zealand. The meal was a total success. I'm not good at cooking fish but the chef had a few pointers!

I appreciated so much Simon's concern yesterday. He could see I was genuinely sick. He rang from the house in the morning to see how I was, and was a bit shocked at how terribly croaky my voice was from the stomach acid. He's always full of suggestions, and natural ways to feel better. The lemon juice thing was his suggestion too. I didn't know that lemon juice could settle your stomach, but have tried it and it works. They sell it in the supermarket too in the health drink section, a 1.25 litre bottle of just lemon juice mixture with none of the shit they put into soft drinks.

So I'm feeling much better today, back pain nearly gone, and very little discomfort in my stomach if at all. Looks like it's Eno for me.

MP's abused over gay marriage

With a parliamentary debate on the way later this year about gay marriage, there has been a large number of abusive emails being sent to parliamentary members of all political persuasions. Some MP's are quite concerned about it.

While many writers put their names to letters, others were posting anonymous abusive comments on social networking sites.

''The attacks and homophobia we have all experienced on Twitter, Facebook and the street will not deter us from standing up for what is right,'' Mr Bandt said.

Some material seen by The Sun-Herald cannot be quoted because of its graphic nature. One of the letters sent to a Labor MP accused her of trying to promote ''unhealthy addictions''.

 ''A small minority of heterosexuals fail their biological reality and as a consequence of dysfunctional experiences, developmental and emotional immaturity become addicted to homosexual practices,'' the letter said. ''Unhealthy addictions need healthy solutions and redefining marriage will not heal biological self-deception and self-delusional fantasies.''

Another letter writer said MPs were trying to indoctrinate children ''with compulsory homosexual propaganda in violation of parental rights''.
Link

 I do wonder just how much influence the Australian Christian Lobby has had on such emails being sent? Particularly as it now has been pointed out their obsession with with the LGBT community, speaking out against them nearly 5 times more than any other issue. 

The Australian Christian Lobby has been criticised for its relentless campaigning on gay issues by other members of the Christian community after data revealed the group raised LGBT issues almost five times more than any other issue.

Jacob Holman, 22, a volunteer for Melbourne radio station Joy 94.9, this week collated the data from six months of ACL press releases and the media mentions they post on their website to find they had spoken out against issues affecting Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgenders 122 times.

 The next most prominent issue for the ACL – prostitution and human trafficking – had only been referred to 25 times.

The ACL defended the amount of mentions by saying they were campaigning on a marriage and family issue, not a LGBT issue.

Canon Richard Tutin from Queensland Churches Together, a body which represents 12 Christian churches including Catholics and Anglicans, said people from different churches were frustrated by the ACL.

"They totally have an agenda," he said.

 "They're more interested in upholding a very, very traditional view of marriage and that's derived in their eyes from scripture and societal practice.

"The nuclear family is very much at the heart of that type of thinking, the traditional family of a mother, a father and children is there.

 "They don't always take into account the differences in family these days."

 Mr Tutin said the ACL liked to think they represent all Christians, but they did not "by any stretch of the imagination" and though many churches had set views on particular issues, they also allowed members to form their own opinions.
Link

I'd expect that there's a few in the ACL who're gay themselves but are too chicken shit to deal with their own sexuality. Choosing instead to take out their self loathing on other braver people much more in touch with themselves and the broader community.

The "I DO" campaign for marriage equality

 Link

I was disgusted to read this:

THE Australian Christian Lobby has complained to the media regulator about the involvement of Channel Seven's Sunrise program in a campaign for same-sex marriage.

The breakfast news program has joined with campaigners Australian Marriage Equality and GetUp! and marie claire magazine to collect signatures for a petition to legalise same-sex marriage and will broadcast today from pro-gay marriage events in Melbourne and Sydney.

The Christian Lobby has told the Australian Communications and Media Authority that Sunrise's involvement in the ''I do'' campaign is a breach of the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice, which requires news to be presented impartially.

The partnership with GetUp! and associated advertising on its website ''compromise Sunrise's role as a current affairs program and move it to the realm of overt activism'' the complaint says.

The Christian Lobby has also urged its members to contact the program's sponsors.

Seven's director of news and public affairs, Peter Meakin, said Sunrise, would include all sides of the debate, including the views of the Christian Lobby.

''I admit that we're being a bit provocative in this, but there's no attempt to intimidate the audience into one particular viewpoint,'' Mr Meakin said.

''I think it's less than desirable when people try to stifle debate on an important issue,'' he said.

Link

Admittedly the relaxed nature of a morning news show like Sunrise may not be the bastion of even handedness on occasion, but to make an official complaint to the Australian Communications and Media Authority is just appalling. Channel Seven has said it would provide both sides of the argument (as in the debate I posted yesterday, btw in which Phelps was called a Nazi by the Christian). It appears the Christian lobby is afraid of the other side of the argument being aired on national telly. Who do they bloody well think they are?

You can sign the GetUp petition for marriage equality here.

We've removed discrimination from our hearts - now it's time to remove it from our laws. The majority of Australians want to end marriage discrimination and believe that same-sex couples should be allowed to wed.

Denying some Australians the right to marry fuels discrimination and prejudice. Marriage equality for all Australians is long overdue.

In just weeks a Senate and a House of Representatives inquiry into marriage equality will be released. And, in a few months, our members of parliament will vote to determine whether or not same-sex couples will be afforded the same legal right to marry.

Sign the petition asking our politicians to vote in favor of reform. And, find out more about our special events in Sydney and Melbourne this Thursday to make sure our MPs know that Australia supports marriage equality.  

And this was a lovely video put together by GetUp about the "I Do" campaign.

The right to die

Link 

I've often thought about this. In fact one of the first things I thought after being diagnosed was "Thank fuck, now I have a way out". That was what went through my head in the doctors office when he told me I had HIV. 

And although suicide hasn't occurred since then, I've always thought that if things got too bad in the future I'd be able to leave this life by simply refusing medication. It would be a rather bad way to die I guess, but one that was in fact a legal form of suicide. One that I could use in the absence of legalised Euthanasia. Of course I'd prefer a lethal injection, but unfortunately that involves illegality and incrimination of anyone who assists me in it. 

It would also be a method where I  was at the steering wheel. Not some religious fuckwit talking out his ass, not some gov fuckwit obsessed with a nanny state. Not some fool who thinks they know better than me, despite not having lived my life. 

There have been so many things in life that have affected me terribly that have been completely out of my control. I would like to be able to control the way I die. Part of that being a right to die if I wish, with my dignity and self respect intact as I leave this world.