So I got this comment on a (nearly) year-old post yesterday. It’s the one about tax tips (and – now that I’ve re-read it for the first time in about a year – a pretty funny one, if I do say so myself.)

At first I thought it was spam. I hoped it was spam, because it seemed a little bit mean. The part about my game. So I decided it must be spam.  Then I realized it wasn’t spam, largely because the first word of said spam happened to be my first name.

“Vanessa. I have been waiting for your blogg. Ki you really need to step up your game.
Is something else taking your focus away from writing? Everyone can spit, But few can spit around the corner.
Just a tip from your old uncle Dors.”

And you  know what?

Old Uncle Dors is on crack.

But he’s also onto something.

I have no freaking idea what the spitting stuff is about. I’m chalking that up to the crack.

But otherwise – although completely baffling – he’s kinda right. There are a few things taking the focus away from my writing. I don’t really like to get into my personal issues in this medium, but I suppose the long silences and extended absences may require some kind of explanation or commentary.

Thus, as much as I hesitate to go there in public, please enjoy a short list – in no particular order – of the myriad issues that distract my mind and take my focus away from my writing:

Damn. They should hire him to do the next Exorcist movie.

• Generalized fears about solar flares
• Generalized fear of that Millionaire Matchmaker lady.
• What the eff happened to Gary Coleman?
• Deep thoughts of no particular consequence
• Why can’t I do a cartwheel?
• Why didn’t I move that 401K when the stock was still worth something?
• Does Eric Clapton really get off on ‘57 Chevys? Define ‘get off’,’ because I think maybe I have a different idea of what getting off means? Does he mean he gets off on or he gets off ON? Man, I hate that song.
• Why do I keep dreaming about snakes?
• Who wrote the book of love?
• Wouldn’t it be nice if there really were such a thing as money trees? Like a plant that makes money, not a store where you trade your car title for $50 or whatever. Those are real.

Last count, he was 542 years old. So either he's a vampire or he's dead.

• My throat hurts and my ear aches and my skin is kind of sensitive and my head hurts and my hair hurts oh, dammit, I think I’m getting sick.
• Is Papa Smurf still alive?
• Are we really going to transcend to the fifth dimension on December 21, 2012 and what will the weather be like?
• Does my bologna have a first name?
• What’s up with brain tumors besides the fact that they suck balls?
• Low-grade fear of whatever it is that happened to Heidi Fleiss’ face.
• Generalized anxiety about money.
• Generalized anxiety about Monet.
• Man, did they screw up Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs or what? That was my FAVORITE book as a little girl. The movie was total crap. Actually, I quit after the first 15 minutes when the town wasn’t even named Chewandswallow, but I’m assuming the rest of it was equal parts crap.
• How come?
• Why not?
• What if?
• What’s wrong with Jennifer Anniston such that everyone always dumps her? Seriously, she seems so pretty and funny and is “America’s Sweetheart”, but obviously there’s something way wrong there. Ceaseless nose picking? An unpredictable mean streak?

I prefer cherry.

• Do androids dream of electric sheep?
• If Clonazepam is for seizures, how does somebody get addicted to it? And why?
• How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
• Is there an app for that?
• Wondering where the lions are.
• Huh?
• Was Sherlock Holmes really that much of a badass in the books, or is that something they invented for the movie?
• How much coffee is too much coffee?
• Did the groundhog see his shadow or not and does it really matter and – the real question here – when the hell is it going to be warm and sunny again?
• Why haven’t I heard from my dad in like a month?
• What ever happened to Baby Jane?
• What’s the price of tea in China?
• Blog? What blog? Oh yeah. That blog.

Hey kids!

Isn’t it nice to see the blog looking like it’s supposed to!?

I may never update or install or touch anything ever again, simply to avoid further screw ups. I regard Wordpress as I do voodoo – mysterious, dangerous, and not to be trifled with.

This (uncredited) picture does a pretty good job of conveying the migraine experience. Oddly enough, mine, too, are concentrated in my left eye.

Meanwhile – in reference to the subject line of this post – I have a killer migraine. I used to think people who whined about migraines and took three days off of work were self-indulgent drama queens.

Now I know better, although I’ve never actually taken a day off of work because of one. I have worked from home and once I gave a customer presentation seriously looped up on butabital [and painfully aware of the flourescent lighting the entire time], but I am ‘push through it’ kind of person, so the sensation that my head is going to explode and pour out my eye sockets isn’t enough for me to call in sick.

Anyway, my head hurts. Bad. So much so that I spent the first few hours this morning trying not to puke. And everytime I would have the ‘puke pre-cough’ (does everyone get this? If I’m really nauseated, I spend a lot of time coughing as if I’m puking, but nothing actually comes up. Thankfully.) I would have to clutch my head to stabilize my brain.

Ow.

Meanwhile, the Michael Jackson memorial service is on TV, and I’m not watching it (why? Funerals suck period. There’s no way I’d watch one on TV), but it does strike me as amazing that it’s getting as much – if not more – coverage than a Presidential election. Not only is it on all the major channels and news channels, but it’s also taken over VH1, E!, BET, and MTV (and who knows what else. I didn’t bother checking them all out.)

It also strikes me that a gold casket is terribly wasteful, and I really hope it’s not *real* gold, because seriously – and I think even Michael would agree with me on this – imagine how many children could be fed or AIDs medications distributed or animals rescued or people put through rehab on the money used to make a King Tut-worthy tomb that’s just going to sit in the dirt.

And while you’re pondering that, think about this: If someday the archeologists of the year 3000 dig up this casket and find a man with his bones chiseled away and cheekbone and chin implants and whatever other weirdness is in there? Happily, at least, they won’t be able to tell he didn’t have a nose, because none of us has a nose after a few hundred years in the ground.

This now makes me wonder how they do those reconstructions out of clay to approximate what Jack the Ripper or Christopher Columbus or Nefertiti (good thing I Googled that. I was WAY off in my spelling, and no doubt Frothy Afterbirth would have noticed!) or whomever may have looked like?

(Secondarily, having Googled the spelling of Nefertiti, I now know there are busts of her and that’s how we know what she looked like. But you know what I mean, like when they find bodies in fires or left strewn under a trailer by the serial killer who did them in and they manage to rebuild the face somehow?)

And with that, my left eyeball is in way too much pain to stare at this screen for one more minute. Talk to you tomorrow and until then…caveat emptor!