Yep, even those.

Danielle Trussoni was definately “Daddy’s Little Girl”. She was named after him, physically resembled him, and adored him. Her parents split up when Danielle was young. While Danielle’s mother kept her other siblings, Danielle chose to live with her father.

The two were very close, and this allowed Danielle to notice that there were some very odd things about her father. Dan was haunted by his experiences in Vietnam. He would tell stories about his experiences over there, and end up lost in thought, oblivious to his surroundings. Danielle simply accepted her father as he was, and basically took care of him until he was “back”. In many ways, she had become the adult in their family.

When she grew up, she was able to sift through her memories from childhood and re-examine them with the eyes of an adult. She remembered pictures her father showed her from when he was in Vietnam. Some were brutal, and frightening. Was the skull she found in the basement real? Why did her father have it?

This memoir is an extremely personal look at how her family was affected by her father’s experiences in Vietnam. The book jumps in chronology, juxtaposing Trussoni’s childhood memories with her adult experiences as she searched for answers about what really happened.

She discovers that her father was once what was called a “Tunnel Rat” in Vietnam, one of the most dangerous and psychologically damaging jobs a soldier could have. After doing a lot of research on Vietnam, and what American soldiers went through in regards to it, Danielle embarks on a trip. She visits Vietnam herself, and takes a guided tour of the same tunnels that her father crawled through years before. Her experience going into one of these dark, small, dirty tunnels following a tour guide is terrifying and stressful. There is something about being in the dark, underground, in an enclosed space that is unnerving all on it’s own. She can only imagine what her father may have felt as a soldier, who knew that these tunnels held traps, and enemies, both of whom could kill him in an instant.

There are a lot of families who watched loved ones head off to war, and return home as a completely different, and damaged, person. This book focuses on a father who was in Vietnam, however, I am certain that soldiers who have been in other wars come back dramatically different too. I think a lot of people will read this book, and recognize some of the behaviors and patterns seen in Trussoni’s family in their own.

I chose to read this book for a few reasons. My father was in the military around the time of Vietnam. I haven’t any idea what he may, or may not have experienced, or where, exactly in the world he may have served. However, it is clear that my father is different from many other fathers, and I can see some similarities between how he behaves, and how Trussoni’s father behaved. This is a book that daughters of soldiers will understand.

I also wanted to read this book because I think it was part of a group that once was on MySpace called “The Memorist’s Collective”, or something close to that. Long ago, I entered a contest that they held, where the winner would get their memoir published by a major publishing house. I didn’t win the contest, but I did get the opportunity to read some excellent submissions and excerpts from other people’s memoirs. As a result, I now really enjoy reading memoirs, and finding out about other people’s lives from their unique and personal writings.

There were four authors organizing the group, and Trussoni was one of them (unless I am completely mistaken). I have reviewed the books of two of the other members so far: I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir by Josh Kilmer Purcell, and Queen of the Oddballs by Hillary Carlip. Each book is unique, touching, fabulous, and extremely personal. I intend to seek out the last book from this group sometime soon.

I have a sinus infection. At least, I’m fairly certain it’s a sinus infection. I get them several times a year, and every doctor I’ve ever gone to says that the frequency has something to do with how severely allergic I am to all of nature. Well, not exactly in those words, but you get the idea.

Anyway, since I get them all the time, I’m fairly certain the misery I have been experiencing lately is the demon called “sinus infection”. Not 100% certain, but fairly certain. Why the uncertainty? Oh, because this is America, and I am unemployed, and therefore, apparently this means that I don’t deserve health insurance. Which means I can’t really afford to go see a doctor about it, get confirmation of what is slowly killing me, and potentially get antibiotics to cure it.

Back in September, I had one of those special jobs that allows a person to be considered valuable enough to society to get health insurance. Those who have been following this blog already know that my old job, as a teacher’s aide for special education students… went *POOF* and disappeared, right along with a pathetically high number of other teacher’s jobs here in California.

Some of you out there might be thinking: “What about COBRA health insurance?” If you are thinking this, then I firmly believe that you have never, ever, in your entire life, ever lost a job and been offered COBRA. I blogged about this a while ago, but here’s a quick recap.

COBRA cost more per month than I was going to get in Unemployment Insurance benefits. Which means that every cent that I got from Unemployment Insurance would have gone directly to COBRA, plus some of what was in our pittance of a savings account. Once that ran out, and it would very quickly, I would once again have no health insurance. Oh, and this was all a moot point anyway, because, if I remember correctly, I hadn’t actually received any money from Unemployment Insurance by the time the deadline to sign up for COBRA ran out.

A good friend of mine had a brilliant suggestion. She pointed out that most, if not all, clinics and doctor’s offices should have something called a “sliding scale” of fees for people who have no health insurance. Today, as I type this, it is Sunday. If I’m still this sick tomorrow, I’m going to start making phone calls, and begin the “Quest to Find the Sliding Scale”.

The only other option I’m aware of is to do what some members of my family end up doing. Go to the ER when things get so bad that one is near death, and get treated. Then, when the bill comes, “lose it”, or change addresses, or, tell them that you’ve died. Or, declare bankruptcy. Oh, or I could just curl up and die after finally succumbing to my illness. There’s that.

Until then, here I sit. Blogging incoherently, while listening to podcasts, and running a fever. I’m certain that later on, I will go back to the poor woman’s version of health care: Sleeping, drinking lots of water, and playing video games. I’ve been playing Viva Pinata, Farmville, and World of Warcraft for countless hours lately. I don’t recommend getting into the battlegrounds in WoW while really, really sick. Unless you find dying over and over again to be as amusing as I seem to at the moment. Perhaps this sinus infection is eating my brain.

Anyhow…. I know that what I’m writing sounds like a whole lot of “poor me”. If only! There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people in the exact same overcrowded and sinking boat as I am. When it comes to health insurance, we, the Unemployed, are standing on the Titanic, listening to the Government continue to play the violin and chello, oblivious.

I just read this article that came from the Cal Coast News. com. It’s called County Unemployment At Record High. Here are some “fun facts”:

* Statewide, the unemployment rate increased to 12.5 percent in January, compared with a national 10.6 percent rate.

* The number of unemployed county residents rose by 1,900 people during the month, bringing the 12 month total of non-farm jobs lost to 5,200.

Depressing. I’m not sure why they don’t count “farm jobs” as a part of this, but, whatever. Nothing makes sense to me anymore. I bring up these numbers to illustrate my point, that there are a whole bunch of us out there who are unemployed, who are sick, and who are lacking the health insurance we need to get better.

There are those in this country that believe that if America decided to give governmental subsidized health insurance, (*cough* like Medicare *cough*), to it’s citizens, that this would be horrible, because then we would have become “Socialists”. Somehow, there are a bunch of people out there, who I am certain have adequate health insurance that they have no fear of losing, who just don’t want everybody else to have the same protection that they are enjoying.

Here is what I have to say to these people. We, the Unemployed, and Underemployed, outnumber you. Most of us are contagious, since we can’t afford to see a doctor. We still have to go out in the world to do things like go to grocery stores to purchase food, go to gas stations to put gas in our cars, and go to the post office to send off our “Continued Claim Forms”. You have been crossing paths with us. That item you put in your grocery cart might be same one that we coughed on, and put back on the shelf, because we can’t afford to buy it.

Some of us who are underemployed can’t afford to stay home sick from work, so, instead, we are ringing up your purchases while we are sick, and handing them back to you with added germs. We end up serving, (or cooking!) your food as you eat lunch or dinner at your expensive restaurant of choice. You run the risk, each and every day, of catching the diseases, viruses, and colds that the thousands of us without health insurance can’t afford to see a doctor about. If you care for absolutely no one other than yourself, and aren’t stupid, you should be able to see why it would be a good idea for America to give all it’s citizens affordable health insurance. Think about that!

J.C. Hutchins just had this book published by a major publisher.  This is a remarkable feat because the book started out as a podcast.  Hutchins podcasted the book in weekly installments, it grew in popularity, and now it is published in book form (I read it on the Amazon Kindle app on my iPod Touch.  This book is the first in a series as the original manuscript was broken up into several smaller novels.  It is obvious that the story goes on when you reach the last sentence of the book.

The book opens up dramatically with a four year old having assassinated the president of the United States.  Then seven people are kidnapped.  There is John, the musician; Dr. Mike, the psychologist about to go on Larry King; Michael, the marine; Father Thomas, the priest; Kilroy 2.0, a notorious computer hacker; Jay who works for the U.N.; and Jack, a geneticist.  They are taken to this top secret facility where they find out they are beta clones and must stop the Alpha from killing more people.

I couldn’t listen to the original podcasted novel, but enjoyed it quite a bit in print form.  It eventually turns into a real page- turner.  The most interesting character in my opinion is John, a musician, kind of the black sheep who hasn’t really done much with his life, but is as smart as the others. For some reason he seems to stand out to me as the main character even though the seven clones are supposed to be equals in terms of character development.  Kilroy 2.0 is a fun character as the nerdy computer hacker who laughs maniacally and believes in the vast conspiracy network.  I really enjoyed the parts in the book where the seven clones work together to solve a piece of the puzzle that has been placed before them.  Overall I would have to say it is a fun read.

Stephen King has written some long books in his career, most notably The Stand.  At over 1000 pages and 35 hours long for the audiobook (which I listened to), Under the Dome can join those ranks.  I’ve been listening to this book since December and last night I finally finished it.  Like most Stephen King books it doesn’t start picking up the pace until three quarters of the way through it. The beginning is all set up and with a whole town full of characters as are in this book there is a lot to set up.

As you can guess from the title, a mysterious glass dome has completely covered the Maine town of Chester’s Mill.  The dome is completely clear and when it falls, a man giving flying lessons to a woman in a Cessna-like plane crash into it killing them both foreshadowing a bigger and more devastating plane crash outside of the dome later in the story.  Birds line the edges of the dome where they have flown into it and have been crushed to death.  The dome goes several miles into the air and deep under the ground.  It also has an effect on people where the touch it for the first time they feel a big electric shock and then every time they touch it after that they are fine.  If someone has a pacemaker or a hearing aid they are dead on contact with the dome.

The hero of the story is Dale Barbara or “Barbie” for short.  He was a sergeant  in Iraq who got a job as a short order cook at the local eating establishment Sweet Briar Rose.  He got in a fight with the town hoodlums including Junior Renny, Mel Searls, and  Carl Thibodeaux (spelling may not be right as I listened to the book and didn’t read the pages) in a bar parking lot. Barbie was leaving town on foot after the fight when the dome fell and he was trapped in town.  Meanwhile Junior  has these horrible migraines caused by a brain tumor and he murders two young girls in this house and they become his “girlfriends”.  Junior’s father James Renny is the major villain in the story. Big Jim Renny is a used car salesman and the town’s second selectman.  He has also been involved in a huge national Meth ring.  The police chief Randolph is worthless and cowers to Renny letting Renny basically run the town as a dictator when the dome falls.  Renny hires his son Junior and the other thugs involved in the fight with Barbie as police officers and this is the beginning of Chester’s Mill becoming a police state with much similarity to Nazi Germany.

The book then turns in the direction of a good and evil story under the dome with the good side being Dale Barbara and his friends including Julia Schumway, head of the newspaper, and Rusty Everett, the medical assistant, who becomes main doctor when the doctor dies.  The bad side is the new police force, Big Jim Renny, and his cronies involved in the Meth ring before the dome fell.

I found this book to be an entertaining and interesting character study of a trapped town.  Several themes stood out for me such as the corruption of power, how easily people can side with the Big Jim to the point where people are wearing blue handkerchiefs tied to their arms as armbands, and then when we find out the origins of the dome the theme shifts to shameful things everybody has done sometime in their lives.

At the end of the book is an author’s note where Stephen King says that he first started writing this book in 1976 and could only get about 70 pages into it.  He went back to it again in 2006 and started over from scratch, but keeping the same opening idea that he had way back then.  I thought that was really interesting.  The reader Raul Esparza did a really good job of capturing the personalities of the many different characters in this book.

Inside My Head Podcast number 108

This is my St. Patrick’s Day episode. Shawn and I go on another quest for the elusive and tasty Shamrock Shake.

Music in this episode by:
* Dust Rhinos , with a song called “A Dozen Bloody Roses”

* Maria Dunn , with a song called “The Elder Sister”

* Great Big Sea, with a song called “Mari Mac”

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone!

I think we’ve finally got that sewer gas problem under control. After moving some stuff around, I discovered this open drain pipe, hiding in the hallway:

We went to the hardware store later that day and picked up another Qwik Cap. Now the pipe is capped and so far, so good:

I seem to have come through my respiratory infection. Haven’t completely recovered, but feeling much better. Unfortunately, Jen’s come down with similar symptoms and she’s pretty sick. Guess that was inevitable. She’s holding off for now, but she may go and see a doctor if things don’t improve soon. We were invited to a party tonight but we had to cancel, which is disappointing. But, she’s in no shape to go anywhere right now. We spent the day at home. Watching TV and playing Viva Pinata.
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