As a person with Severe Sleep Apnea, let me be the first to welcome you to Hell. Well Hell might be to strong a word. a few things you might want to consider: 1. there are several mask options depending on you issues with claustrophobia: Full face- what
you have , Nasal (what I have) Nasal pillow (pillow is a misnomer for
nostril plugs padded by a "pillow"), nasal prong (new dual action- looks
like a sci fi reject- I always think "I am the walrus" when I see
these). Hybrid- for those who was plugs and mouth cover, oral (goes into
yon mouth- remember to bite down now), and everyone's favorite full
face (think hazmat)
2.
make sure you get a good humidifier attachment. Most Cpap are good at
drying out basements ( well your body) humidifiers go a long way
especially over winter. 3. Distilled water, not spring or tap. Residue in humidifiers are a pain to clean 4. Padded straps with minimal velcro, there is nothing quite like velcro burn at 3am. 5. snuggle hose cover, if it gets under you at night you might have dreams about vacuum cleaners and cybernetic snakes. 6.
I am planning on the next since the hose is a minor nightmare- where do
you keep it. the best way is to have it go straight up over the back of
your head like a mohawk. Strangulation and soffocation can occur
regularly. Also (I need this) there are these things called hose lift
system (looks like medical drip stands) that elevate the hose out of
tangle range.
modern CPAP (well almost modern)
It's Mine, all mine! Although I want the one on the left.
These CPAP have humidifier attachments
Snuggle hose (snuggle bunnies!)
Snuggle Mask (snuggle bunnies!)
Okay it's not a drip stand but it could be
7. in case of skin irritation panic. Okay, use the jelly/cream/oil stuff but don't say I didn't warn you. 8.
the good news is that when you sleep, you will hit REM and become 90%
motionless. These crazy machine work amazingly well. I don't even take a
nap without mine. Keep them claen (wash the masks and hoses and change
your air filters- don't use soap or anything that has a residue or odor) 9. Hope that your significant other is shorter than you and enjoys chest snuggling. otherwise disaster can occur. 10.
Murphy's Law. Make sure (I said make sure) you place your cpap machine
in a relative position equal to or below your head. Becuase if you don't
when you manage to tangle the cord the last thing you need is for it to
fall on your forehead at 4AM! That's it. when
you decide you hate it, consider the alternative to cpap- that would be
the old method where the cut a hole in your throat and put in a
removable plug.
This is not actually a CPAP but it could have been!
Everyone, at some point, decides they need to identify with someone fictional. Well most everyone, whether they admit it or not. I will concede that there are probably 3 (or 3000) people out there that didn't and are really boring because they did not- but I digress. Many of us come to a place in our lives, especially when we are younger and more prone to daydreams and flights of fantasy where we want to be like someone we read about or see in a movie or on tv. Then we get older, like 22 and decide that as new adults we need to be something other than that ridiculous notion of heroism that our younger self wanted and we become more active (or less) as we try to realize our dreams. Most of us don't.
Some of us do.
Some of us don't in spectacular fashion.
Don't believe me?
I went to a slew of funeral in my 20's for friends who blazed out in 1 way or another. Not all of the funerals were had coffins and grieving loved ones mind you. In fact, many of them were parties and even celebrations but there was death/ending there and it was a funeral all the same.
Both of my parents reached high and in some ways each of them succeeded spectacularly. Depending on which one you talk to the other did well but met with an early demise unless, of course, it's a good day and they are feeling forgiving to the other. Then, it's a song of praise, although it was usually my Father who would concede the "victory," but in all "honesty" I didn't buy for a second that either of them really were trying to persuade me as much as they wanted to convince themselves. So what is my point?
My parents like so many adults stopped identifying with heroes.
They became adults (they were and are still interesting- but to a point.) and that meant no more dreams of youth and fantasy. At least not in any measurable means I could understand. I will say that when asked my mother will put up a good defense in favor of dreams and such but in the end you will never catch her or my father say (even to themselves) "I'm Batman."
Don't get me wrong. I love my parents. but my experience with them gets summed up like this:
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things.
(it's from the Bible- the ultimate killjoy on all thing fictional....kidding and only half true)
I guess my point is why is it so bloody important that I put away "childish things?'
First let me say that Childish Things mean a lot of different things to different people.
There is no set rule on what is and isn't childish.
To my parents however, it covered just about everything I EVER liked and cared about in my life.
I will give you (and probably my parents {just incase they read this and come looking for me in the basement}) the short list- which I have been told by them (and other adults) are childish.
1. Xbox Games (and all things video game)
2. Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D for me) and it's ilk.
3. Toys (for me stuffed animals- not the ones that get stuck on girl's beds, but for me gritty tactile imaginary friends like the tiger for that comic)
also action figures: Star Wars at first then others ending with GI Joe.
Toys were very important for me. They gave me the beginnings of my imagination. Not the beginning but one of the myriad of genesis to my imagination.
Part of this was I was a lonely child, not very good at making or keeping friends like many kids who were too smart and moody for the mainstream crowd
4. Comic Books. That is a entire collection of blogs worth except it actually brings me back to my point.
I am Batman.
Now I know that I am not actually Batman. I am not rich and my parents were not gunned down in an alley in Gotham (even if I am sometimes envious of this lack of similarity) I love you dad!
I am neither deluded into thinking I could go out in a cape, battle armor (think movies) and utility belt (thinkgeek would be delirious if I was) nor am I going to take on the criminal element without a Butler named Alfred and an army of Bat people.
Like that.
BUT
I AM BATMAN
in my head and imagination.
I way a one man war against the world as I have lived in and around it. My life has been blessed with many things and experiences. I have been fortunate to have parents who at very worst smothered me with affection and faith in my abilities (albeit not necessarily the one I wanted but the fact remains). Your parent's can't make life perfect for you (unless they have gobs and gobs of money and give it to you and then maybe.
This is me, right now, in the "real world." it's no one's fault. It just is this way. There are a lot of reasons.
The reason that I am going to give you today is
I AM BATMAN
let me put it this way. It is how I choose to deal with the world and my life. That is when I am fairly lucid and not feeling like being a Christian. I used to refer to it as my "rocket launcher days."
That takes me back. Wow, anyway if I can have a rocket launcher, I will go back to being BATMAN.
This one is for my brother. He is DARTH VADER
I bet you good money that he still looks in the mirror some mornings and wishes he was DV and didn't have to shave.
DV was my brother's Fictional hero (avatar persay)
Somedays I still see him as such and me as Obi Wan running away from him in the Death Star.... no wait I guess that would be me as Han Solo. I would be yelling unintelligibly with the occasional "I shot first DAMMIT!"
Sorry I figured you might need a visual right here.
Now where was I?
Oh, thanks.
What is it that makes Batman so appealing to me as a Fictional Character that I would pull him as my avatar.
Lone Wolf, isolate, self-imposed aloneness.
It's not a Bat Fetish despite what claims my ex-imaginary girlfriend claims.
In my imagination, my reality. The Batman represents a freedom from the reality of nothingness like in that (mostly annoying) movie
It did have however a valid point. We need to keep our imaginations alive or end up like the rest of A&E and the Walking Dead (no actual Zombie was used in this comparison).
So for today and tomorrow and probably most of next week, I will remain BATMAN
even though it will seem as heroic as this-
and not this...
Then one day, I will become a better Batman and my only problem will be this
(roll the visual)
And that my friends (true believers)
is life according to Mike.
ps. I want to thanks Stan "the Man" Lee and Frank Miller
I probably have said this before but writing this blog takes a lot of work. Every post takes more than a day. This one did, started it on Monday 6/3/13.
Lately I have been watching commencement speeches given at various schools around the country and the world. One of the things that has impressed me with what I have seen is the blatant honesty the speakers have used when addressing the graduates. One can only hope that some of them get it and do something with what they have been told. http://youtu.be/JHl80Wmpj40
This is one I just watched today.
Neil Gaimon
is one of my all time favorite authors (I got to meet him a long time ago before his fiction days, back when it was just Sandman and a dream)
Saw this a few months ago.
Joss Whedon is also an awesome writer and director- I like most of what he has done.
Saw this last week
Jon Stewart is my hero,
Watched this one earlier this spring
JK Rawlings is a great writer but more than that is the fact that she had to fight her way up from virtual nothingness and then withstand being accused of being a thief and fraud and yet come out still great as a human being with a soul of a saint
This one might have provoked the ME ME ME Generation acticle by Time Magazine
because Ellen is Awesome
Talk about taking on the impossible and winning and yet being very very gracious about it.
because Stephen Colbert is well awesome.
When you know you are awesome make Richard Branson name a Jet after you.
I doubt that I will ever be asked to make a speech for a graduating class but if I ever do I will come back to this blog before I write it.
and that is my graduation speech of hopefulness to all of you
No matter who you are or where you are, you can invent or reinvent who and what you are at any time in your life. Sometimes, it take effort everyday to remember that you did so in the first place.
After all, this is life according to Mike.
reinvented.
PS. I am going to VLog on Youtube soon (especially since I want to be abused)
look for me under Life According to Mike (will have to make a vid upload it and see how that goes) but I will update this soon
Thanks for coming to see if I have gotten off the thrills of SK and going to post some new insight into the nature of being me. And thanks for upping my site visits marginally. And thanks for not commenting her like crazy and using up all my precious Borderlands 2 time with having to read all those crazy comments. And thanks to google for making it near impossible to do so. (One day I will get this sorted out so I can share in the hatred and loathing of my fellow internets).
I am working on a new blog. Hopefully it will be done soon.
that is, for the most part, life according to Mike
So at the behest of my Therapist- let's call him Rob Iamrightnow- I began reading Stephen King again. I am about halfway through his book-
I have to say that the book has reinforced much of what I already knew about writing and reading and not stinking at either.
This week I have been writing, most of it in my mind but not all. More than one story- of course. I am like a painter that only switched brushes as I walk from one studio into another to dab some paint on one piece before throwing more on another then back through the door before the paint dries.
I am jealous of Stephen King, mostly because he recognized his need early and stuck with it instead of trying to find a way to let the voices out through more than just a page and a pencil and a will.
His advice is solid, his tools clear, his point of view tested, and thus annoying especially since I continue to find proof of how right it is.
I hope that he might expound a little on why his books are so good and why so many of the movies of his books are so bad (there I said it) and even as I say it I know why some of them are better than the others. It is because Stephen isn't telling the story, I don't think he would start trying to fence in the movies like so many of them have ended up fenced in.
Also, it should be noted that Stephen has pointed out the fatal flaw that most of these directors have missed along with so many of his fans may or may not have noted.
Stephen King lets his readers fill in their own details and descriptions to his stories which may just be one of his strongest features of his success as a storyteller. Stephen gives each and every one of his readers the option of taking ownership of his writing and personalize it to the readers perception rather than forcing a particular idea or detail or description on them. Most movies find this an unavoidable flaw in taking a vision and transforming it.
Point of reference, It. I found It positively terrifying in the book. The clown was definitely creepy and the bug was dumb in the movie. The director's vision of It was not a success because he felt the need to force his idea of It on the viewers so by the time you get to the bug, most people went to bed or threw up their collective hands with "Oh Man!" and wrote the movie off as yet another failure to great book.
It doesn't always go that bad, some of the movies made from Stephens books are successes. of those that I have seen, some have actually managed to match the book from which they sprang. A few were as good or even (dare I say it?) better.
My favorite SK movie is the Shawshank Redemption. It wasn't a critical or box office success but it was undeniably good from beginning to end capturing everything I liked about the novella and really fleshing out a great idea.
I am not going to list my choices- well I might if you really bug me.
mostly I want to talk about writing from SK's direction in his book.
will say this though I love these photos of the man. My respect for his as a writer has grown immensely as I have read his book and I will probably try (and I mean give it the college try) to read and perhaps reread his fiction.
yes I said reread (its like eBay's relist) it should be a word dammit because it means so much more that just reading or reading again.
Mike's definition of reread: it's when you read something again because you know if you can give it one more chance you might buy it even if you it take all night. (one day I will give you my definition of relist- in the meantime shut the claptrap up! Kidding well almost kidding)
Carrie, Which I have seen the movie (okay) and the remake(awful- but way cooler music) well to be honest the remake was so bad that I didn't stay for the end where the telekinetic is supposed to shoot cds around like flying sawblades. The Book like most book to movies was much better, at least in my memory it was but it was a long time since I have read or tried to read it.
To be honest, I was never much of a horror movie fan, so Christine (which was the quintessential Stephen King movie while I was in high school) turned me off of Stephen King like "Tom Sawyer" turned me off of Rush for years
Reading this book of SK, has vastly rearmed my ability as a writer, has given me the direction I have been needing to finish my own stories, my books and maybe just maybe find a new peace or piece of myself.
I DO plan to read not only Stephen King, but also every book in his recommended list of books.
because as SK says:
Also for those of you who have passed out yet. I have a short story that I have written as per Mr. King's directions and as soon as I no longer get sidetracked and actually finish transcribing it and proof read it at least once. I am going to send it to the MAN. Yes I am. Maybe he will tell me I have potential and not ignore me as another fan (especially since I am not really one) and at least give me feedback on it. Then I will share my brilliance with you my adoring public of that guy I met at the convenience store last night and the girls (or girls/women) who feel sorry for me and just read this blog so that I will leave them alone. And then there is you (YOU) the person who has come here in search of enlightenment or at very least in a desperate search for something with good grammar and not to boring. To you (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) I give you thanks for reading this my latest rant (okay technically it's not a rant....)
writing a blog is easy, writing a good blog is hard, and writing an interesting blog is damned hard
this stuff takes time. If I were a richer man then you would see more of my ideas in my blogs because I could afford to take the time to do it instead of selling stuff on eBay to fund my reading habit.
Facebook is evil because it often contains my best stuff in some comment exchange or message text and I get back here after the exchange and the well runs dry
I love video games but I cannot blog much and play video games- unless I start blogging about video games (I suspect my blog would get kind of boring after awhile)
blogging is like exercise, the more you do it the better you get, but its hell of a thing to keep going week after week
for me a short blog is like cheating
which means that blogging takes time.
my blog on Stephen King is coming, now quit bugging me.
A New friend of mine was talking of relationships and their difficulties and the topic of being a Bitch came up in light of Scarlet O'Hara (being one). My Friend- let's call her Brenda, says:
"...She's (Scarlet) proof that men love bitches, lol."
I replied (after careful consideration):
"I have (loved a few), but I suspect you are not one."
She replies:
"Nope... but I have been told that I need to become one."
(other comments)
My soon to be famous reply: whoever told you that needs to find a small flat wall and bang their head against it until the itch is out of Bitch Yep, that's me, Mister Smooth with Words.
Hazmat (or full face mask)
I am so happy with my nasal pillow
