One Thing Leads to Another

It rained here early this morning. It’s probably safe to say that the Rainy Season has officially started in the Lakeside Area. It’s a good thing. The fires will stop burning. The Chinese Mountains will turn green again. And maybe my seasonal allergies will settle down.

I started this morning the way I usually do; drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and contemplating the vicissitudes of life. I will freely admit that I find life confusing. It’s one reason why I drink so much coffee in the morning.

My lovely supermodel wife drinks cappuccinos, but only because she can’t get find Coffee-mate® Flavored Creamers in Mexico.

She used to be able to find them at Super Lake, the gringo supermarket in Ajijic, but about four months ago they stopped stocking it without any explanation. We’ve asked about it several times.

“Vuelve la proxima semana…”

“Come back next week…” Next week, much like unto tomorrow, is something that doesn’t actually exist in reality. That’s why Lea drinks cappuccino now. 

Coffee is one of the weird tastes you develop when you become an adult. It smells like heaven, but it tastes kind of god-awful. Over time, you eventually get used to it. Unlike my wife, I don’t use creamers of any kind in my coffee. 

 “Café, negro, como mi alma.” That’s how I order it.

Black, like my soul. The baristas always laugh. I find it ironic because I’m not joking.

* * * *

The other thing I do in the morning is my daily Dualgringo lesson. That’s what I call my language app. Duolingo® is a platform that includes a language-learning website and app, as well as a digital language proficiency assessment exam. It keeps telling me that I’m doing great and having a good time, so I guess I am.

Lea and I stopped going to Spanish lessons, but neither of us have given up on the idea of kind of understanding how to sort of speak Spanish. We’ve both given up on the idea of ever being fluent in it.

I think if you really want to be bifocally fluent in more than one language, you should start when you’re six, not sixty.

* * * *

I’ve been looking forward to the Rainy Season. It moderates the temperature, and I generally feel better when it’s cooler and there’s less dust in the air. On the downside, the Velcro grass will grow thick on the golf course, and my scores will probably suffer for the next several months.

It’s probably a good thing that I beat Cheryl on Thursday because it might be the only time I ever do.

My golf wife, Phyllis, and I regularly play golf with Cheryl and her real husband, Tom. Cheryl is Madame Champion at my country club. She’s a very good golfer, most of the time. She had a bad day on Thursday, and that’s the only reason I beat her. It certainly wasn’t because I was tearing up the course.

I’m consistently scoring less than 100 now, but still more than 80, which is my current goal. It’s something that I only dreamed of doing a year ago, so I know I’m slowly getting better. I have a lots of almost great shots. I’m practicing for the day that I actually have a lots of great shots. I figure I can’t miss them all, so it’s theoretically possible that someday I will make them all.

Attitude is everything.

Cheryl will probably beat me by twenty strokes on Sunday. I’ll need to bring my ‘A’ game, if I have one, just to stay within five strokes of her score. In terms of following up on my last post, I need to golf like unto a porn star.

* * * *

Golf has become one of my most frequent topics in my blog. Probably because it’s the only thing I do on a regular basis, besides eat and sleep. I could start writing restaurant reviews, I guess. But then more people would want to come down here, and I don’t want that.

By the way, the food sucks here.

* * * *

I don’t write about porn stars often, but I can’t say that I’ve never broached the subject. And that’s how I got to this point. After I finished my last post, I started wondering why people become porn stars. And I drank a lots of coffee.

* * * *

What do you want to be when you grow up?

No one ever says they want to be a drug addict. I doubt that 🌟Porn Star🌟 ever ranks in the Top Ten in terms of future professions. I’m guessing Garbage Collector rates higher than being a porn star, and who the fuck wants to be a garbage man when they grow up?

So, how does this even happen?

* * * *

Possible Little Known Fact About Being a Porn Star: You don’t require any special schooling or training to become one. It doesn’t appear that you even have to know how to act. I have yet to find any Juilliard graduates working in the Porn Industry. As long as you don’t have any qualms about having sex in front of a camera, you probably have all of the qualifications you’ll need for a career in adult movies.

The process of becoming a porn star appears to be fairly simple:

Step One: Fill out an application form. I know, right! I couldn’t believe it either, but there’s even an online form available. Step Two: You have to be at least eighteen years old, but there doesn’t appear to be an age limit! So, if you’re looking for something to do after you retire…  And, it would give you the perfect opportunity to get back at your children for all of the times they embarrassed you. Step Three: You have to pass a physical proving that you don’t have any Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

If you can survive that strenuous process, you’re probably in.

* * * *

After that, it gets tricksier. And by that I mean, Why?

As a guy, I can totally understand it from a male perspective. There’s probably no such thing as a guy who wouldn’t want to be a porn star. Guys are essentially pigs that have learned to walk on two legs and wear clothes. The idea that a guy could have sex and get paid for it is essentially the Guy version of Heaven. That, and there probably has to be beer…

I have to admit that I was surprised by the reasons women gave when they decided to become porn stars, mostly because there were so many of them.

* * * *

Why do you want to be a nurse?

It was one of the first questions we were asked in nursing school. You can probably guess the most popular answer.

I want to do something to help people.

99% of the the people in my class gave that answer, or something like unto it.

I was much more interested in helping myself when I decided to become a nurse. I was tired of working a bunch of dead end jobs and being unemployed. I wanted a career.

* * * *

Working in the Porn Industry doesn’t appear to be the first career choice for many people, even men, though I have to assume it has actually happened. But working in Food Service isn’t anywhere near as much fun as they make it look on TV, so there’s that.

I’ve had two jobs in the Food Service Industry. I was fired from both of them. If I had gone into the Porn Industry, I’m sure it would have killed me to death. I’ll come back to this later…

Interestingly enough, the most popular reason why women become porn stars is economics. More than half of the women surveyed said they did it for the money, and it can be a lucrative career.

One young woman said she was working three jobs to make ends meet somewhere up in Canadia, and she figured there had to be a better way. She filled out an online application and moved to Los Angeles. Apparently, if you really want to be a porn star, you have to live where porn movies are made…

One woman was working as a social worker before she changed careers.

Becoming a social worker isn’t easy, though it’s probably easier than actually being a social worker. You could ask around, they have shit jobs most of the time. You have to have a lots of education and training for a job that might pay you $50K a year. Many social workers have a Masters degree, which means even more education and training. They might make around $70K a year.

Yep. You read that right. It’s ridiculous. A good social worker is worth twice her weight in gold. Maybe three times.

I’ve worked with a lots of social workers over the years. I can think of at least a dozen of them I wouldn’t have minded seeing naked. So, if any of you are reading this, please let me know if you ever decide to change careers.

I haven’t found any information about nurses becoming porn stars, but then, nurses make more money than social workers, so there’s that. I can think of about fifty of my former co-workers that I wouldn’t have minded seeing naked. Nurse-themed pornography is apparently quite popular, and, they already have the wardrobe…  I almost hope none of them read this because I’m sure they’d all tell me to Drop dead. Or worse.

For some women, pornography was an opportunity to explore their sexuality, to travel, and get paid. “It sounded like fun.” Anyone who frequently travels for business will tell you that there’s nothing fun about it. That shit gets real old, real fast.

Interesting Fact About Porn Stars: None of them use their real names. They all have 🌟Porn Star🌟 Names. Vicki Vette. Aspen Rain. India Summer. Carter Cruise. Ivana Sukyurkokov. You can have a 🌟Porn  Star🌟 Name, too. Your first name is the name of your pet. Your last name is the street you grew up on. My 🌟Porn Star🌟 Name is Rusty Cherry.

Some women had friends working in the industry, and, “It sounded like fun.” More than a few porn stars said that. What I think is telling is they all said it in the past tense.

There’s a fair amount of evidence that indicates the life of a porn star isn’t all fun and games and multiple orgasms.

Between November 2017 and January 2018, at least five adult performers died due to alleged drug overdoses or by suicide. One of them was the young woman who had been working three jobs up in Canadia. She was 23 years old. “We are in a crisis in the adult industry. It’s almost becoming like an epidemic.” That’s a quote from a female porn star who wanted to remain anonymous because, you know, Snitches get stitches.

No one likes bad reviews in the movie business, even if they’re true. Probably, especially if they’re true. #metoo

There’s another saying in Hollywood. You’ll never work in this town again. It means, You’ll never get another part in a film. If Hollywood is a small, cinematic community, it’s even more true of the Porn Industry.

Suicide actually appears to be one of the leading causes of death for people in the adult film community, whether it be from ‘accidental’ drug or alcohol related overdoses, or a more direct method. You can look it up on the Interweb. It’s a pretty long list.

If you can’t speak out against injustice in your occupation, it can only lead to despair.

You can quote me on that line.

“After a year or so of that so-called ‘glamorous life,’ I sadly discovered that drugs and drinking were part of the lifestyle.” That’s another anonymous quote from a female porn star. This is where I would have died to death. In a profession that glamorizes excesses, I wouldn’t have lived long enough to get into The 27 Club.

* * * *

The 27 Club is the name given to a group of influential rock musicians who died at the ripe old age of 27. Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin. Jim Morrison. Kurt Kobain. It’s another pretty long list.

* * * *

I’m sure there are plenty of reasons for drug and alcohol abuse in the Porn Industry. There always are. Some of them might even be reasonable, not the least of which is societal scorn and shaming. The Porn Industry makes billions of dollars a year, but no one ever watches it. Porn stars are easy targets for cyberbullying/harassment.   #andyouthinkyouhaditrough

If you work in the adult film industry, there’s no such thing as Bring Your Child to Work Day. And those Parent/Teacher conferences at school take on a whole new light.

I couldn’t find any statistical analysis of drug/alcohol abuse/depression specific to the Porn Industry, but there are a lots of articles about the prevalence of it. Somewhat ironically, the profession with the highest rates of alcohol abuse and depression is healthcare. Yeah, go figure on that.

It would appear that literally getting fucked at work has the same net result as figuratively getting fucked at work, which is something almost all of us are familiar with.   #andididntevengetkissed

From the Odds and Ends Department

Have you ever watched something on TV, or read something, and thought, Man, I could do so much better than that! You might even be thinking that right now…  Especially if you’ve read more than one of my blog posts.

I mean, all this guy writes about is getting wasted, his slutty girlfriends, and how all of his relationships fell apart! There was that story about his nympho Russian girlfriend, Ivana Sukyurkokov. And his heartbroken Chinese girlfriend, Wat Wen Wong. Jeez, his blog is dumber than putting wheels on a ball! I liked him more when he wrote about crazy people!

And I hear you. Before I started writing my blog, I thought bloggers were people who needed to get a fucking life, man. They were probably people who thought Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian were the epitome of American society and they all wanted to be Paris-ites, or biffles, or twat waffles with them or something.

I’ve started reading some of the blogs that are out there on the Interweb, and I was wrong about bloggers. Most of them appear to have lives.

Except me.

I’m retired. If I were to write about my day-to-day life now, my blog would consist of restaurant reviews in the Lakeside area, and stories about how much I love my Sleep Number bed®.

And to be honest, I probably liked me more when I was writing about crazy people, too. But those stories are relatively easy to write, and like everything else in life, it’s only when you step outside of your comfort zone that anything meaningful happens. It’s the stories I didn’t want to write that taught me the most about myself. It was the stories that hurt like hell that showed me how far I’ve come.

And how far I still have to go.

And the other thing about writing about my nursing career is not every person I cared for resulted in a story worth telling.  Knife wielding homicidal maniacs were the exception, not the rule, thank God. Most of my patients were never a problem, unlike medical dramas on TV. I’d probably hate being a TV nurse, unless my work partner was the hot nurse with the big tits…

The majority of my nursing career was pretty ho-hum. Mischief was managed. Shit got done. No one died. And that was that. But there were a lots of snippets and moments and oneliners, and if I could patchwork a lots of them together, I might be able to spin a tale or two…

* * * *

I’ve discovered that time management is still necessary once you retire. I certainly have more time to do things I enjoy now, like reading. And because other bloggers sometimes read my posts, I feel a certain obligation to read some of their posts, too. My favorite blogger is a young woman in New York who writes about her struggle to overcome her eating disorder. Her blog is called Beauty Beyond Bones. And while I love her now, I probably would’ve hated her as a patient.

Back when I was a psych nurse in Arizona, there were a couple of eating disorder treatment facilities in the little town of Wickenburg, about thirty miles northwest of Surprise. Remuda Ranch and Rosewood Ranch. She’s never come out and said if she was a patient at either of them, but I’m going to guess she was at Remuda. I hope she doesn’t mind me saying that. I interviewed at both facilities, but decided not to take a position at either one of them. I absolutely sucked at working with eating disorder patients.

Remuda is a Christian based treatment facility. One of the questions they asked me in the interview was did I think the Bible was the sole source of truth. I said no, it wasn’t, and I wasn’t even sure all of the things written in the Bible were true. After my interview, they told me I wasn’t Christian enough to meet their criteria. I told them that was okay. They weren’t the first Christians to tell me that.

A few weeks later they called me back and told me that they had changed their mind about me, and asked if I was still interested in working there. I wanted to say something like, God, you guys must be fucking desperate! But instead I thanked them for thinking of me, and told them I had found another position and I wasn’t available anymore.

Well, it was the truth…

Like most every psychological/psychiatric disorder, eating disorders are caused by a multitude of complex factors, and as with every psychological/psychiatric disorder–except dementia–the successful treatment of anorexia or bulimia depends completely on the patient. If they don’t want to change their behavior, there ain’t nothin’ anyone can do for them once they’re discharged from the hospital.

It’s like alcoholism or drug addiction, only worse. Just as the drinking and chemical use are usually a symptom of a deeper, darker pathology, eating disorders are about far more than food.

Eating disorders are incredibly difficult to treat, mostly because eating disorder patients are the spawn of Satan. I mean that in a Christian way. They are sneakier than a ninja. They can vomit silently so they can purge without anyone knowing. They stockpile food so they can binge feed when no one is looking. And if their lips are moving, they’re probably lying.

The other thing I remember most clearly about most of these women, and they were all females, is the majority of them were gorgeous. And that is truly one of the great mysteries that used to keep me awake at night when I was learning how to be a psych nurse. How could someone so beautiful be so fucking miserable?

One of my first posts was about one of my patients at the MVAMC. I called him the Piano Man because he liked to play the piano. About the time he walked onto the unit for one of his many admissions, we had just discharged a gal with anorexia. She had been on our unit for a couple of weeks, and none of the staff were sad to see her go.

After we got the Piano Man admitted, he sat down at the piano and started playing, and the piano sounded like a wounded moose. We opened the top to find the eating disorder girl had hid enough food inside of the piano to feed Hannibal’s entire army when he crossed the Alps to attack Rome. Including the elephants.

For someone who has never worked in a psychiatric setting, it would be easy to say that we, as staff members, totally sucked at our job, and I really don’t have much of anything to say in our defense. We were hardly specialists at treating eating disorders, and the fact we were so happy to see that particular patient leave speaks volumes to the level of struggle we all had with her.

* * * *

To be sure, it’s very easy to be an armchair quarterback or a wheelchair general, and criticize someone doing a job you’ve never attempted. And when you’re in a service oriented occupation like Nursing, you are never going to be able to make everybody happy. No one is that good, and people can be incredibly demanding/entitled. And it is generally the people who were making the least positive contribution to anything who were the most demanding and entitled.

You guys have to be the worst fucking nurses I’ve ever seen! I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that one. And it was usually a guy that you and your team had spent a month busting your asses trying to arrange housing and follow up for, who had been discharged from your unit forty-eight hours earlier, and was already back because he chose to drink as much alcohol and smoke as much meth as he possibly could before he came crawling back to the hospital.

Most of the time it’s better to just agree with someone like that, and walk away. But there were times when I couldn’t.

“Maybe you should get out more…  That means a lots coming from you…”

I said something like unto that to one of my unhappy frequent flyer guys at the MVAMC who probably spent as much time in the hospital as I did. His name was Ray. I’m going to guess that the total bill for the many, many times we detoxed him off of alcohol, sobered him up and set him up to succeed was in excess of one million dollars, and he had this response, “You used to be a good guy, but you need a new job. You’ve been inpatient too long.”

“So have you.” I replied.

He froze to death one cold December night in Minneapolis. He had gotten drunk and was walking to the hospital so he could be admitted again. His body was found propped up against a tree across the street from the hospital in the morning. He had stopped to rest before making his final stumbling trek to the ED, and had fallen asleep.

You meet a lots of guys like unto that when you’re a psych nurse. There was Charles. He was another MVAMC guy who spent an inordinate amount of time getting drunker than fifty guys combined, and the rest of his time detoxing on my unit.

We had safely detoxed Charles for the umpteenth time, and discharged him at 9:00 AM on a Friday morning. At 2:30 PM that same day, I answered the phone. It was Charles.

“Hey, I don’t think this discharge thing is going to work, man. I’ve been out of the hospital for about six hours, and I’m pretty fuckin’ wasted, man.” he slurred.

“Hey, Charles. Has it ever occurred to you that you need to quit drinking?” I decided to ask. There was a long silence, and then Charles said this,

“Is there anyone else there I can talk to?”

For one of the few times in my life, I had no response. I handed the phone to one of my co-workers. Charles would also die to death as a result of his alcohol abuse.

Sometimes the disease wins.

* * * *

You never know what you’ll see or hear as a psych nurse, and there’s a reason for that. People are capable of an infinite amount of kooky stuff, not that you have to be a psych nurse to experience the full spectrum of kookiness available out there.

All you really need to see that is a family.

But one thing you may not experience unless you’re a psych nurse is the dreaded Dissociative Identity Disorder, or more commonly, Multiple Personality Disorder. In my thirty year career, I met a lots of people who claimed to have multiple personalities, but none of them ever seemed to be legitimate to me, or anyone else I worked with.

Multiple Personality Disorder was virtually unheard of until the 1970’s. That’s when the book Sybil was published, 1973 to be exact. Three years later, the TV movie of the same name was broadcast on NBC, starring Sally Field and Joanne Woodward, and like magic, suddenly everyone had multiple personalities.

For my money, all of the people I met who claimed to have multiple personalities were just assholes looking for an easy excuse for their behavior.

* * * *

I was working nights at the MVAMC fairly early in my career. I was the Med nurse that night, so anyone needing any medications had to see me. Enter Sam. It was around 2:00 AM. We had detoxed Sam off of alcohol with a Valium protocol. Once someone had been safely detoxed, the protocol was discontinued.

Sam had been off the protocol for a day or two, but he wanted more Valium. I explained to him how the protocol worked, and Sam had a five star meltdown. He screamed at me, waking up everyone on the unit. One of the other nurses called the POD and got a one time order of Valium for Sam, and he went back to bed.

At 6:00 AM, Sam came up to the nursing station to get his morning meds. He was quite pleasant, and I remarked that he was much nicer than he had been at 2:00 AM.

“Oh, that. That wasn’t me. That was Samuel.”

“No kidding. He looks just like you.” I said.

Sam gave me, and anyone else willing to listen, a detailed description of his three personalities: Sam, Samuel and Sheryl. A line of patients had formed behind Sam. They were waiting to get their meds so they could go smoke. According to Sam, Samuel was the troublemaker. Sheryl was the lover, and Sam was the drunk. I listened to Sam, and gave him his meds.

“Well, the next time you talk to Samuel, give him a message.” I said. “If he ever talks to me like that again, I’m gonna punch you in the fuckin’ mouth.”

Sam’s jaw dropped. He turned to the guys standing behind him, “Did you hear that! He threatened me!”

“Hey! Take your goddamn meds and get the hell out of the way! And if you ever pull that shit again, if he doesn’t punch you in the fuckin’ mouth, I will.” one of the Nam vets growled.

Yeah, not one of my better moments, but Samuel never made another appearance.

* * * *

I think the last time I met anyone who claimed to have multiple personalities was at Aurora. I walked onto the Canyon Unit, and Nikki was on a 1:1. She was a frequent flyer, and I was usually her nurse.

A 1:1 is a special precaution, usually reserved for patients that are acutely suicidal. In essence, one staff person is assigned to one patient, and that patient is never more than an arm’s length away from the person assigned to watch over them.

Well, that’s how it’s supposed to work, but it’s rarely played out that way.

I went over to talk to Nikki. She had scratched her wrist with a plastic spoon on the evening shift. She didn’t even break the integrity of her skin, and her nurse had placed her on the 1:1.

I’m shaking my head while I write this. I don’t usually like to criticize the actions of other nurses, but that was a lazy-ass intervention. If the evening nurse had taken even five minutes to talk to Nikki, that ridiculous waste of manpower and resources wouldn’t have been needed. We barely had enough staff to cover the units, let alone have one staff assigned to watch someone for no good reason.

I asked Nikki to tell me what happened.

“I didn’t do anything! It was Alexandra!”

“And whom might that be?”

“She’s one of my three personalities! She–”

“Stop. Cut the crap, Nikki. You’re on a 1:1. You can’t smoke if you’re on a 1:1.” I said.

“But they let me smoke last night, and this morning!”

“I don’t care what they did last night. This is my unit, my rules. If I can’t trust you to be safe on the unit, I’m sure as hell not going to trust you to be safe off the unit, with a lit cigarette in your hand. What if you decide to burn yourself?”

“It wasn’t me! It was Alexandra!”

“I don’t care who did it. None of you get to smoke.”

“I’ll be safe, I promise! Please!!”

Less than five minutes. Mischief managed. And I never heard another word about Alexandra again. Ever.

* * * *

There was a fairly consistent response whenever I told someone that I had just met that I was a psychiatric nurse. Their eyes would widen, and they would say something like unto, “I bet you’ve seen it all, huh.”

I would reply, “No. I’ve seen a lots of strange stuff, but the kookiness of humans is infinite.”

And that is the fucking truth.

Every time I thought I had seen it all, something I didn’t think was humanly possible walked through the door. I eventually made peace with the fact that I would never see it all, and I was okay with that. My two other personalities are still sulking about that a bit, but they’ll get over it.

Or I’ll punch them in the mouth.