Triggers

I guess it wasn't just Prednisone that made me rabidly angry after my last open heart surgery.

I'm getting angry a lot right now. Pissed off at people who don't believe in Obamacare, pissed off at snide comments, More than anything, I am getting white-hot mad at religion.

Religion has ALWAYS been my main anger trigger. Since I was a very small child. At 5 years old, I was calling preachers hypocrites and walking out of services. I was born this way. I came out of the womb hostile towards organized religion.

The shit today - preachers using pulpits to spout hate-speak and control their congregations. There's no love in it. No forgiveness and no open-mindedness. Only fear, shame and control.

Religion is the Anti-Christ. Pure and simple.

Nobody should tell anybody what to believe and this ridiculous praying to a sky god who lords over us all. Ludicrous. Churches are Sky God Clubs with mindless followers, all trying to one-up the other with their snooty ideas and fake piousness.

It is time for churches to go.

My Voice is Gone

With everything else going on, it never occurred to me I might lose my singing voice due to all of my surgeries. But, it sounds like crap. I am singing like a frog.

Went online and read comments from other patients who had the same surgeries. No one lost their voice, permanently, although several people said that they have lost much of their higher register. Some said their voices didn't return until 8 or 12 months after surgery. On the plus side, one lady said her voice got richer with a more complex vibrato, when it finally came back.

You may imagine how scary this is, for me. Especially with my singer/songwriter twin sister vocalizing around the house all the time. Since childhood, we have easily harmonized with each other. And I usually took the lead singer role. Last night was hard. She was singing up a storm, in a 3-octave range. It was my natural inclination to chime in - but was hurt and horrified by what came out of my mouth.

Patience - that's what all of the online forums said. Give yourself time. Practice breathing exercises. Don't overdo. Don't equate self-worth with how my voice sounds.

My voice has always been an important part of my life, I took it for granted and it was how I made my living - not just as a professional vocalist, but as a radio broadcaster, telephone operator, call-center voice and receptionist. And this doesn't include all of the voiceover and commercial cash I made on the side.

I am alive. I don't have cancer. My heart works. I am healing. I will get my voice back. But, I think this is the scariest thing of all.

Latest Celebrity Crushes and Luxury Comedy

"Squidbillies", a crude, absurd cartoon about a tribe of Northern Georgia land-dwelling octopuses got me through my last open-heart surgery. The show also helped me deal with the prejudices encountered while living in the South for 4 years. I recommend the show to any "Yankees" who find themselves displaced below the Mason-Dixon line for a time.

As my 2015 surgery date approached, I wondered what would get me through the bodily trauma, this time. When my sister, Linda, posted an episode of Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy on my Facebook page prior to my chest-cracking, I had my answer.

For several weeks, I had been developing a crush on the adorable deadpan British comedian, director, writer and intellectual, Richard Ayoade, after watching the TV show "The IT Crowd" on Netflix. My crush solidified, when I began following his work on panel shows and on a tech-savvy news show, Gadget Man on You Tube. I mean, look at him. Caramel skin, impish big brown eyes, cleft chin and a mass of unruly hair. What's not to love?

He has a wacky friend, who also appeared with him on on most of these ventures, Noel Fielding. You must watch Fielding's work portraying the character "Richmond" on "The IT Crowd". Noel created "Luxury Comedy", one of the most bizarre shows I've ever seen and I was hooked. Happily, Ayoade appears on many of Luxury Comedy's episodes.

Anyhow, this theater of the absurd got me through the run-up to surgery, and I finished the last episode of the second season, today, nearly 2 weeks after the operation. I am still laughing.

Luxury Comedy. ooh yeah.