Asthma: This Is how I will Die

My asthma has been keeping me pretty much out of action this week. Yesterday, I thought I had to go to the ER twice! Sometimes, when it's really hard to breathe, I think, "this is how I am going to die. Maybe not today, but like this." It's hard to have real thoughts when you're brain isn't getting any oxygen.

I opened the fridge to get some mustard, and I felt like I had run a mile.

The asthma websites want me to be vegan. I am vegan. They want me to stop drinking redwine in the summer. I have put all my bottles away for the season. I haven't drunk a drop of alcohol in a week. They want me to put tea tree oil in a towel and breath through the towel. It stings my nose and makes my lips numb.

I bought bottles of MSM, Magnesium, Chinese healthy lung, and a multi-vitamin. When I take the handful of pills at once, I think, "This must be what it feels like to be a chicken." Chickens swallow gravel to help chew their food.

When you're having an attack, you try anything to stop it. I hate Albuterol and all other rescue meds, but I suck down a shit ton of them when it looks like my lips might go blue. When you're trying anything and everything, it's hard to know what works and what doesn't. Perhaps it all works in concert. I take long hot baths that are uncomfortably warm because a website told me that would help dilate my bronchial tubes.

This is how I will die.

Zombieville USA

This little iPhone game destroyed many a minute as I waited for Mary to count out at the café or waited for people late for meetings. It also made me late for work once.

It starts with a really good sample of a scream and dares you to tap the screen. When you do, you become a toothless redneck with a penchant for busting heads and robbing houses. You have to kill zombies and raid homes for money and ammo. The money buys you an extremely fun range of weapons from chainsaws to flamethrowers, from rocket launchers to magnums.

This is what it looks like when you kill a zombie:

The zombies get a little different, faster and stronger, and your weapons get increasingly more entertaining and difficult to use. The grenade launcher takes some getting used to, for example. Eventually there are so many zombies rising from the suburban sidewalks to eat your brains that it's impossible to continue. I wonder if there is an ending. I can't seem to come near to beating the Zombieville USA. But balancing the two commodities, money and bullets is interesting; which one is more important in a zombie apocalypse? It depends on what level you're on and how much life you have left.

This is what it looks like when the zombies kill you:

The animation is awesome, the soundtrack is quite good, the sound effects are pretty perfect, and the gameplay, as far as iPhone games, is nonpareil. The gore kind of reminds me of Metal Slug; remember that game? When you die, it tells you what level you got to and how many zombies you sent to hell. I've killed over 500 at level 20.

There's no saving your game and no continuing, which kind of blows, but the game's certainly worth a few bucks and a few hours of your life.

Glitter Pony

Glitter Pony came out a little while ago. I like Glitter Pony. This issue has one of my favorite poets in it, CA Conrad. I've always wanted to meet Mr. Conrad. In his Youtube video in a bathtub in I think Dottie Lasky's house, he looks like a very interesting person. We have emailed.

I once tried to illustrate his chapbook version of the Frank Poems. I only got to the page where Frank was picking out his father's gold fillings.

A long time ago, Sara Mumolo and I wanted to make a play out of the Frank Poems. We never did it.

I have never submitted to Glitter Pony. At least, I don't think I ever have. I would like to be in Glitter Pony some day.

Recovery

After last night's launch party, we recoverin the park to music and art.

Darjeeling cafe

Working at decorating for Blu launch.

At a photo shoot on roof of the stonewall Jackson

For Blu magazine.

Mockingbird