Is the cat coming up or going down the stairs?

One of the best reaction shots in film history

 

Pure evil: The Snow Man

I am exhausted, my eyes are raw, I feel "off" in some extremely uncomfortable, unpleasant way that I can't even describe and don't want to think about. I woke up at 4:00 a.m. terrified I'd never get back to sleep again, and I barely did. Why? My computer is completely fucked up. It stopped doing anything useful 2 days ago, abruptly. I couldn't blog because it wouldn't post. Or at least some of the time. It would start to, then quit. I couldn't do anything on Facebook. Blank spaces appeared everywhere, on YouTube, etc. where there was supposed to be "something". Usually instantaneously fast, it became slow, slow, slow, or just left you hanging while you watched a pointless little spinning ball in the middle of the screen.

I called my son, of course, assuming it needed some small adjustment. The thing was sort of working, after all. But he didn't come downstairs right away. Time went on, and more and more, while one of my two blondie grandgirls showed me a brand new game she had just mastered, called "cat's cradle". As delighted as I was with the resurrection of a game that goes at least as far back as my mother's generation, I was NOT delighted by what my son finally told me.

He had no idea what was wrong with it. Wait a minute. JEFF doesn't know what's wrong with it. He said "if this shit started happening to my computer my hair would stand on end". He thought it was big stuff. But he couldn't fix it. This was a first. He does computer stuff for a living and is very good at it. There is NOTHING he can't fix. He couldn't fix this because everything he tried (and he tried everything) had no effect.

I was using mainly Google Chrome, which had worked flawlessly at light speed for several years, so he uninstalled and reinstalled it several times, to no avail. Then he was running out of time, so stuck Firefox on there as an alternative, and left. But it had not been  set up and looked like a big blob of burning charred meat in an empty field. I sat down and realized all my bookmarks were gone. All of them. "They've been wiped clean," my husband reassured me. "Just put them back in."

"But I can't get the addresses unless I can go on the sites, and I can't go on the sites unless I have the addresses."

"Oh yes you can."

"No you can't. Look, I have to sign in to everything and give my password, and I don't remember any of them. Then I just get a generic page, not MY page. The internet has divorced me."

It was hell, actually, and I had that horrible sinking feeling of losing everything I had worked on for years and years. I couldn't sleep, woke up anxious in the night, and have felt like utter crap for 2 days. I spent four or five hours trying to make sense of Firefox or Foxfire or whatever-it-is. Bill got me back my bookmarked things or I'd still be sitting there. I feel as if my whole system has been demolished, and I am now piecing little pieces of stone back together with mucilage.

The problems are still there, hit-or-miss, returning as soon as I think they're gone: I can't post photos on Facebook (except that sometimes I can); I can't post certain things on my blog; things are still going blank or refusing to work, as if some vital connection is greying out. The internet is fine, it isn't that. My computer is fine. I now have Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Firefox at my disposal, and all of them are fucking up in similar ways, but not the SAME ways, not at the same time, and intermittently, a unique form of torture the Nazis knew all about. It's like they're running around passing the football around so elaborately that I can't keep up.

I've deleted several paragraphs here because nobody really wants to know what goes on in my mind at these times. Hell, I don't want to know. I don't know if other people have these areas of vulnerability. Maybe they don't. They certainly don't talk about them if they do. Everyone maintains at least a veneer of mastery. I can sort of do it, sometimes. But I'll die knowing it was, after all, the very thinnest of thin ice.

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Horse-o-rama

Things fall apart: thoughts on the attack on Paris

This started out as a journal entry, then evolved from there. I have been known to delete posts that I later thought were too negative, just because I'd rather not put out that kind of energy. But today it's too much. I wonder now what it takes to go on about your business being cheerful and saying, "Yes, isn't it too bad." The feeling is, "if we feel gloomy the terrorists have won" and "everything happens for a reason" (!). This is about as helpful as saying "crying won't bring him back" and other stone-hearted, sappy bromides that are supposed to be so damn helpful. Our grief is being hijacked along with everything else. Put on a happy face. The problem is, I just can't do it any more.

November 14/15

Horrible terrorist attack in Paris yesterday. Out of the blue, seemingly. This stuff is popping up everywhere and makes me feel sick inside, like climate change. I wonder about the future, what kind of hell it might be for the grandkids, such wonderful souls. Irreplaceable. It could be a worse hell than the world has ever seen. People say things like, “oh, the human race has always kept going no matter what happens,” as if that's some kind of insurance policy against disaster.

Because something has been (more or less) true in the past does NOT mean it will be true in the future: in fact, the more time goes by, the higher the odds it will change. Example: "I’ve smoked cigarettes for 40 years and it hasn’t hurt me." That means you can go on for another 40 and be OK! It means that if it hasn’t happened YET, it will never happen, and CAN never happen, which is the stupidest piece of flawed non-logic I’ve ever seen. But I see it every single day, and people believe it, blandly, sticking a happy face on atrocity, which only leaves the door open for it to continue. It’s just a little thing called denial.

I never know how to get my head around all this, or how to feel. Things seem to be coming apart. When will it end? Nuclear war, I think. As if that threat is no longer there! Then the climate will truly collapse - it won't take more than a tiny nudge - and there will be no food. No food is already a huge one, along with where to live when everything is underwater. No food means riots and people tearing each other’s throats out to survive. Humans will revert to the pack mentality from which they sprang, devolving from apes into something somewhat less than that.

I have a purpose in my life, I am very clear about it and have no doubt of it, and that is to be love to my grandchildren. BE love, not just show love. This is nothing grand, but I don’t have to think about it either. It is as natural as breathing and has been the crown of my life after decades of wretched struggle. So many times I have wanted to end my life, but it looks as if it may be taken out of my hands.

At these times, anxious times, I look at my health and the fact that things have not been quite right for a long time. I had abdominal symptoms, quite severe ones that drove me to the doctor, something I only do under duress because I hate doctors. As usual, her attitude was dismissive, but she did delegate, as all doctors do now. I saw a gynaecologist, a urologist, a gastroenterologist, had two CT scans, two mammograms, a colonoscopy, and they supposedly found nothing. More than three years after being told my colonoscopy was completely normal (though my doctor was supposed to “go over the results” with me, an appointment which turned out to be totally useless because she said “there’s nothing to talk about”, as if this was a waste of her time), she was leafing through my chart and said, “Oh.”

Now, you never want to hear your doctor say, “Oh.”

The “oh” turned out to be the results of the colonoscopy. The polyp they found, the one they never told me about and which my doctor either didn't notice or didn't bother to mention, was not a large one, and not cancerous, but these things can turn cancerous in the future. Other things were wrong inside me that may or may not be a problem later, and which might lead to heavy bleeding or perhaps something worse than that.

My colonoscopy was not completely normal, as the technicians told me it was, but my doctor vagued me away because she didn’t really bother to look at the results.

OK, I don’t want to be one of these cranky old ladies who goes on and on about her health. For the most part I don’t talk about it at all because deep down, I don’t think I have much time left. In only a few months, without conscious effort, I have lost well over 30 pounds, and most of it dropped off me in almost alarming fashion. I was weight-obsessed from age 15 on, though I was never more than 15 or 20 pounds overweight (considered huge by the standards of the day). Thus began a siege on my body that left my metabolism permanently confused, if not completely fucked.

I ruined my body, in a sense, meaning there was a lot of fluctuation, some of it quite dramatic, and some really stupid diets, one of which left me 15 pounds underweight. I’ve never had so many compliments on my appearance in my life (oh, wait – there was that manic episode, the one that nearly killed me, when I supposedly looked 10 years younger! And certainly, if you look ten years younger, you no longer need to keep taking those stupid pills.)

So now my weight plummets, just from cutting out junk food. It’s still going down. I feel a vague nausea and my appetite is definitely down. So, do I go back to that doctor and say, “I’ve lost weight”, especially when she warned me I needed to lose weight and was verging on obesity? She'd probably say, "You look marvelous," and tell me there's nothing wrong.

This is why I don't want to go. Do I invite that familiar leaning forward and peering at me with puckered brow, then suddenly sitting up straight and saying in a decisive voice, “Nope. Can’t find anything”?

No.

Sometimes I think (to try to connect these thoughts together) that all of this is a death-march, that we just have to sing our marching songs as we go our merry way. I mainly want to stay around to help with the grandkids, if they survive. I am not yet sure of the nature of the disaster. Climate change experts are saying it could happen more catastrophically than anyone expects. It could all come apart, suddenly give way, as it seems to be already. Right now denial holds it all tenuously together, so that every extreme flood, every sinkhole swallowing up houses, every freak snowstorm or raging forest fire after a baffling drought is considered a separate event.

I get a queasy feeling from it all. When the food runs out. When the terrorists come HERE, not to France, not even to the United States but here. Don’t think about it, your health is bad enough. Die now? Might be a good idea, but it would upset my family, I think. 

I am too much of a coward to face the kind of world that is coming. So if “something” wants to carry me off, maybe it’s a lot more benevolent than it seems on the surface. What will be will be, but we always assume the people who mean the most to us will be spared. And that is the greatest uncertainty of all.

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Vive la France!

For the people of Paris: La Derniere Classe

La Derniere Classe: The Last Class

From Contes du Lundi by Alphonse Daudet

Told by a little Alsatian

This morning I was very late getting to school and I was afraid of being scolded because M. Hamel had said he would be quizzing us on the participles and I didn’t know the first word. It occurred to me that I might skip class and run afield. The day was warm and bright, the blackbirds were whistling at the edge of the woods, and in the meadow behind the sawmill the Prussians were practicing. Everything seemed much nicer than the rule of participles; but I resisted the urge and hurried toward school.

Passing the town hall, I saw a group of people gathered in front of the notice board. For the past two years that has been where we’ve gotten all the bad news, the battles lost, the demands, the commands; and I thought without stopping: “What now?” Then as I ran by, the blacksmith Wachter, who was there with his apprentice reading the postings, called to me: “Don’t rush, boy; you have plenty of time to get to school!” I thought he was teasing me, and I was out of breath as I reached M. Hamel’s.

Normally, when class starts, there is noise enough to be heard from the street as desks are opened and shut, students repeat lessons together and loudly with hands over ears to learn better, and the teacher’s big ruler knocking on the tables: “Let’s have some quiet!” I was hoping to use the commotion to sneak into place unnoticed, but today all was silent, like a Sunday morning. Through the open window I saw my classmates already in their seats and M. Hamel, who went back and forth with his terrible iron ruler under his arm. I had to open the door and enter amidst this great calm. You can imagine how flushed and fearful I was!

But no, M. Hamel looked at me evenly and said gently: “Take your seat quickly, little Franz, we were starting without you.” I hopped the bench and sat at my desk right away. Only after I had settled in did I notice our teacher had on his fancy green coat, his ruffled shirt and the embroidered silk cap he only wore on inspection or award days. Also, the whole room seemed oddly solemn. But what surprised me most was at the back of the room where the benches were always empty now sat people of the village, quietly like us: the old Hauser with his tricorn, the former mayor, the former postmaster, and some others. Everyone looked sad; and Hauser had brought his old primer, worn at the edges, which he held open on his knees with his glasses resting on the pages.

While I was taking all this in, M. Hamel stood by his chair and in the same grave, gentle voice with which he had welcomed me told us: “Children, this is the last time I will teach the class. Orders from Berlin require that only German be taught in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine … the new teacher arrives tomorrow. Today is your last French lesson. I ask for your best attention.” These words hit me hard. Ah! Those beasts, that’s what they had posted at the town hall. My last French lesson …

Yet I hardly knew how to write! I had learned nothing! And I would learn no more! I wished now to have the lost time back, the classes missed as I hunted for eggs or went skating on the Saar! My books that I had always found so boring, so heavy to carry, my grammar text, my history of the saints—they seemed to me like old friends I couldn’t bear to abandon. It was the same with M. Hamel. The idea that he was leaving made me forget his scolding and the thumps of his ruler. Poor man!

It was in honor of this final class that he had worn his best Sunday outfit, and now I understood why the old men from the village were gathered at the rear of the class. They were there to show that they too were sorry for neglecting to attend school more. It was also a way to thank our teacher of forty years for his fine service, and to show their respect for the country that was disappearing.

I was pondering these things when I heard my name called. It was my turn to recite. What wouldn’t I have given to say that vaunted rule of participles loudly, clearly, flawlessly? Instead I tangled the first words and stood, hanging onto my desk, my heart pounding, unable to raise my head. I heard M. Hamel say: “I won’t scold you, my little Franz, you must already feel bad … That’s how it is. We always say: ‘Bah! I have time. I’ll learn “tomorrow.”’ And now you see it has come … Ah! It is Alsace’s great trouble that she always puts off learning until tomorrow. Now people will be justified in saying to us: ‘How come you pretend to be French and yet don’t know how to read or write your language!” You are not the most guilty of this, my poor Franz. We all have good reason to blame ourselves.

Your parents did not press you to learn your lessons. They’d prefer to have you work in the fields or at the mill to earn some more money. Myself, I am not blameless. Haven’t I sent you to water my garden instead of work? And when I wanted to go fishing, didn’t I give you the day off?"

Then, from one thing to another, M. Hamel spoke of the French tongue, saying it was the most beautiful language in the world, the most clear, the most sensible. That we must keep it ourselves and never forget it, because when a people if they hold onto their language it is like holding the prison key …

Then he took a grammar text and read us our lesson. I was stunned to realize how well I understood it. Everything he said seemed so easy, easy! I believe also that I had never listened so well and that he had never explained to us so patiently. One might think that the poor man wished to give us all his knowledge, to fill our heads in a single try.

After grammar, we moved on to writing. For this day, M. Hamel had prepared new examples, written in beautiful, round script: France, Alsace, France, Alsace. They looked like little flags floating about the classroom, hung from the rods atop our desks. It was something to see everyone set to our work, and so silently! The only sound was the scratching of pens on paper. Once some beetles flew in but no one paid them any attention, not even the little ones who were assiduously tracing their figures with one heart, one mind, as if this also were French … On the roof the pigeons cooed softly. When I heard them I said to myself: “Will they be forced to sing in German, too?” From time to time when I’d raise my eyes from my writing I would see M. Hamel still in his chair staring at the objects around him as if he wanted to memorize exactly how things were in the little schoolhouse.

Imagine! For forty years, he’d been in the same place with his yard before him and all the class likewise. The benches and desks were polished, worn with use; the walnut trees had grown, and the hops he’d planted himself now climbed around the windows to the roof. How heart-breaking it must be for the poor man to leave all these things, to hear his sister packing their things in the room above.

They would have to leave the country the next day, forever.

All the same, he bravely kept class to the very end. After writing, we had a history lesson, then the little ones sang together their BA BE BI BO BU. At the rear of the room, old Hauser put on his glasses and, holding his primer in both hands, chanted the letters with them. It was obviously a great effort for him; his voice trembled with emotion and it was so funny to hear him that we wanted to laugh and cry. Ah! I do remember that last class…

Suddenly the church clock struck noon. During the Angelus we could hear the Prussians’ trumpets beneath the windows as they returned from their exercises… M. Hamel rose, colorless, from his chair. Never had he appeared so large.

“My friends, say, my, I … I…” But something choked him. He couldn’t say it.

He turned to the board, took a piece of chalk and, using all of his strength, he wrote as large as he could:

“VIVE LA FRANCE!”

He stayed there, his head resting on the wall, and wordlessly used his hand to motion to us: “It’s over … you may go.”

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A fact a day: or, semen in espionage

Semen in espionage

When the British Secret Intelligence Service discovered that semen made a good invisible ink, Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming noted of his agents that "Every man (is) his own stylo".[37]

The book Six: The Real James Bonds 1909-1939 by Michael Smith includes an excerpt about the semen ink method from a letter by one of Cumming's officers, Frank Stagg:

"Secret inks were our stock in trade and all were anxious to obtain some which came from a natural source of supply. I shall never forget [Captain Cumming's] delight when the Chief Censor [Frank] Worthington came one day with the announcement that one of his staff had found out that semen would not respond to iodine vapour and told the man that he had had to remove the discoverer from the office immediately as his colleagues were making life intolerable by accusations of masturbation. The Old Man at once asked Coney Hatch [lunatic asylum] to send female equivalent for testing and the slogan went round the office — every man his own stylo. We thought we had solved the problem. Then our man in Copenhagen, Major [Richard] Holme, evidently stocked it in a bottle, for his letters stank to high heaven and we had to tell him that a fresh operation was necessary for each letter."

Do ya know what I'm thinkin' about?

September 8, 1994
Aliquippa, Pennsylvania
USAir, Flight 427
Boeing B-737-300
N513AU

On a flight from Chicago to Pittsburgh, while on approach, the aircraft went into a sudden nose dive and crashed into a wooded ravine 6 miles northwest of the airport. The accident was caused by a loss of control of the aircraft resulting from the movement of the rudder surface to its blowdown limit or an uncommanded rudder reversal. The rudder surface deflected in a direction opposite to that commanded by the pilots as a result of a jam of the main rudder PCU servo valve secondary slide to the servo valve housing offset from its neutral position and overtravel of the primary slide. All 132 aboard were killed.

CAM-1 = Captain
CAM-2 = First Officer
CAM-3 = Cockpit Area Mike (cabin sounds and flight attendants)
RDO-1 = Radio Communications (Captain)
APP: Pittsburgh Approach

CAM-3: They didn't give us connecting flight information or anything. Do you know what gate we're coming into?

CAM-1: Not yet.

CAM-3: Any idea?

CAM-1: No.

CAM-3: Do ya know what I'm thinkin' about? Pretzels.

CAM-1: Pretzels?

CAM-3: You guys need drinks here?

CAM-1: I could use a glass of somethin', whatever's open, water, uh, water, a juice?

CAM-2: I'll split a, yeah, a water, a juice, whatever's back there. I'll split one with 'im.

CAM-3: Okey-dokey. Do you want me to make you my special fruity juice cocktail?

CAM-1: How fruity is it?

CAM-3: Why don't you just try it?

CAM-2: All right, I'll be a guinea pig.

CAM-3: [Sound similar to cabin door closing]
The crew recieve instructions to reduce speed to 210kts, maintain FL100 and

contact Pittsburgh Approach at 121.25.

CAM-1: Two ten, he said?

CAM-2: Two ten? Oh, I heard two fifty ...

CAM-1: I may have misunderstood him.
Pittsburgh Approach asks Flight 427 to turn left heading 100.

CAM-3: [Sound of cockpit door opening]

CAM-3: Here it is.

CAM-1: All right.

CAM-2: All right. Thank you. Thank you.

CAM-3: I didn't taste 'em, so I don't know if they came out right.

CAM-1: That's good.

CAM-2: That is good.

CAM-3: It's good.

CAM-2: That is different. Be real good with some dark rum in it.

CAM-3: Yeah, right.

APP: USAir 427, Pittsburgh Approach. Heading 160, vector ILS Runway 28 Right final approach course speed 120.

CAM-2: What kind of speed?

RDO-1: We're comin' back to 210 and, uh, one sixty heading, down to ten, USAir 427.

CAM-1: What runway did he say?

CAM-1: It tastes like a...

CAM-2: Good.

CAM-1: There's little grapefruit in it?

CAM-3: No.

CAM-2: Cranberry?

CAM-3: Yeah. You saw that from the color.

CAM-1: Else is in it?

CAM-2: Uh, Sprite?

CAM-3: Diet Sprite.

CAM-2: Huh.

CAM-3: And I guess you could do with Sprite. Probably be a little be

RDO-1: Cleared to six, USAir 427.

CAM-2: Oh, my wife would like that.

CAM-1: Cranberry, orange, and Sprite.

CAM-2: Yeah. I guess we ought to do a preliminary.
Pre-landing checks take place; Approach requests a left turn heading 140, and speed reduction to 190kts.

CAM-3: [Sound similar to flap handle being moved; sound of single chime similar to seat belt chime]

CAM-2: Oops. I didn't kiss 'em goodbye. What was the temperature? Remember?

CAM-1: 75.

CAM-2: 75?

PA: Seatbelts and remain seated for the duration of the flight.

PA: Folks, from the flight deck, we should be on the ground in about ten more minutes. Uh, sunny skies, a little hazy. Temperature ... temperature's, ah, 75 degrees. Wind's out of the west around ten miles per hour. Certainly 'ppreciate you choosing USAir for your travel needs this evening. Hope you enjoyed the flight. Hope you come back and travel with us again. This time we'd like to ask our Flight Attendants please prepare the cabin for arrival. Ask you to check the security of your seatbelts. Thank you.

CAM-3: [Seatbelt chime]

RDO-1 : Did you say Runway 28 Left for USAir 427?

APP: Uh, USAir 427, it'll be 28 Right.

RDO-1: 28 Right, thank you.

CAM-1: 28 Right.

CAM-2: Right, 28 Right. That's what we planned on. Autobrakes on one for it.

CAM-1: Seven for six.

CAM-2: Seven for six.

CAM-1: Boy, they always slow you up so bad here.

CAM-2: That sun is gonna be just like it was takin' off in Cleveland yesterday, too. I'm just gonna close my eyes. [Sound of laughter]. You holler when it looks like we're close. [Sound of laughter]

CAM-1: Okay.
APP: USAir 427, turn left heading one zero zero. Traffic will be one to two o'clock, six miles, northbound Jetstream climbing out of thirty-three for five thousand.

RDO-1: We're looking for the traffic, turning to one zero zero, USAir 427.

CAM-3: [Sound in engines increasing rpms]

CAM-2: Oh, yeah. I see the Jetstream.

CAM-1: Sheez...

CAM-2: zuh?

CAM-3: [Sound of thump; sound like 'clickety-click'; again the thumping sound, but quieter than before]

CAM-1: Whoa ... hang on.

CAM-3: [Sound of increasing rpms in engines; sound of clickety-click; sound of trim wheel turning at autopilot trim speed; sound similar to pilot grunting; sound of wailing horn similar to autopilot disconnect warning]

CAM-1: Hang on.

CAM-2: Oh, Shit.

CAM-1: Hang on. What the hell is this?

CAM-3: [Sound of stick shaker; sound of altitude alert]

CAM-3: Traffic. Traffic.

CAM-1: What the...

CAM-2: Oh...

CAM-1: Oh God, Oh God...

APP: USAir...

RDO-1: 427, emergency!

CAM-2: [Sound of scream]

CAM-1: Pull...

CAM-2: Oh...

CAM-1: Pull... pull...

CAM-2: God...

CAM-1: [Sound of screaming]

CAM-2: No... END OF TAPE.

Back to Last Words

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I'm not even going to comment on this!

 

Oh sweet blindness: all over me

let's go down by the grapevine

drink my daddy's wine

get happy 

down by the grapevine

drink my daddy's wine

get happy

happy

oh sweet blindness

a little magic

a little kindness

oh sweet blindness

all over me

four leaves on a clover

I'm just a bit of a shade hung over

come on baby do a slow float

you're a good lookin' riverboat

and ain't that sweet-eyed blindness good to me

let's go down by the grapevine

drink my daddy's wine

good mornin'

down by the grapevine

drink my daddy's wine

good mornin'

Mornin'!

oh sweet blindness

a little magic

a little kindness

oh sweet blindness

all over me

please don't tell my mother

I'm a saloon and a moonshine lover

come on baby do a slow float

you're a good lookin' riverboat

and ain't that sweet eyed blindness good to me

(don't ask me cause I)

ain't gonna tell you what I've been drinkin'

ain't gonna tell you what I've been drinkin'

ain't gonna tell you what I've been drinkin'

wine

of wonder

Wonder!

(by the way)

sweet blindness

a little magic

a little kindness

oh sweet blindness

all over me

don't let daddy hear it

he don't believe in the gin mill spirit

come on baby do a slow float

you're a good lookin' riverboat

and ain't that sweet eyed blindness good to me

good to me

now ain't that sweet eyed blindness good to me

Laura Nyro 

In pain? ANY kind of pain? Shut the fxxx up and TAKE THIS!

This spiel (below) was taken from a Facebook forum about fibromyalgia. Along with the stories from (mostly) women who had lived with this condition for years and tried everything to ease it, there was this block of advice, not asked for, and (I hope) not taken by anyone. It starts off on an "I used to be like you, I understand your pain" level, the usual insincere patronizing bullshit. (Yes, I used to be "like you" -  an unenlightened loser who was obviously the cause of her own distress.) But keep reading, and you'll see the deeper meaning of this thing. It's an ad, folks, and that's all it is.

There will always be someone holding out The Cure, but the way to test their sincerity is to figure out what's in it for them. And if you think they just want to share their good fortune with the world, think again. They're really after your bucks. Don't fall for it. And don't EVER dump your meds because one of these clueless people says you "should"! Meds can be a glorious gift from God, I'm here to tell you, and probably saved my life more times than I can count. "Use" is not "abuse", and it's time people stopped equating the two.

I have had Fibro for 20 years. I know what you are suffering with. I had gotten to the point that I only did what I had to to get thru the day. I turned down doing things with my family because I hurt too bad. I have tried several prescription meds like Lyrica, Neurontin, cymbalta just to name a few. I have tried supplements, physical therapy and chiropractic and nothing ever worked. I have tried diets as well to help with the inflammation in my body. My friend recently introduced me to a company called Plexus Worldwide. It is a health and wellness company that provides natural products that help with many medical issues including Fibromyalgia. I was very skeptical even coming from one of my good friends. Nothing else had worked so why would this product. After several months of my friend telling me about this product o decided to try it. The products that I started with is Triplex and it has 3 products in it. One is a Slim drink packet that you mix with water and taste like a cherry drink. The second is Probio5. It puts the good stuff back into your gut the third one is Biocleanse which detoxes your gut. 

Most diseases are started due to poor gut health. Plexus products regulates your sugar levels, decreases the inflammation in your body, lowers cholesterol, lowers blood pressure, decreases inflammation, gives you energy, decreases cravings for sugar and carbs, helps with sleep, and as an added bonus can promote weight loss. It is an amazing product. I have been taking Plexus for 2 months and I am feeling the best I have in years. My Fibro pain is gone, my inflammation is gone, I am sleeping so much better, I have lost my cravings for diet coke and junk, I have been able to stop taking Lyrica and Neurontin, I have ton of energy, I love to keep busy, enjoying my family again and my list could probably go on and on. The best part is that I have my life back. I have lost 22 lbs plus 5 1/4 inches off my waist and 3 inches off my hips. I feel great. I would love for you to check out Plexus because I know it could help you with your Fibro. Plexus has a 60 day money back guarantee which you can't beat. You have nothing to loose but you may just get your life back. Plexus is sold on my website at (xxxxx) and you can email me at (xxxxx). Please look over the information on my website and contact me if you have any questions.

OK, so you probably know by now that I get incensed by some of the stuff that appears on Facebook. Though I've never had fibromyalgia, I know a number of people who do, and one of the WORST things you can do to a person in that situation is give gratuitous advice, particularly about what they're doing wrong to bring on the condition and what they should be doing right to cure it.

Invariably, like this voluminous spiel (name left out, I don't know why I don't just leave these in and let these assholes twist in the wind), there's a link to a personal web site dedicated to selling The Product that will make all this pain and anguish just go away. Like the snake oil of old, it is "good for man or beast", as well as oiling machinery and defending the free world, and guaranteed to devastate anyone who just needs someone to listen to them for a change. I don't think people with chronic conditions are looking for the anodyne of the week, nor are they thirsting for that ONE true link that will take them to the magical (non-pharmaceutical, of course) substance that will make everything all right again.

Several times in the past year I've had emails from people I know - or thought I knew - and the sum total of the "message" is a link to some herbal weight-loss scheme that no doubt works as well as all the rest of them (i. e. if it works so well, why is there another one next month or next week?) What sort of mailing list am I on, anyway? How anonymous and random is it, or is it somehow "targeted" (that lovely marketing term, which is used all the time now - but think about it. What is a "target" anyway? Think of "target practice", bows and arrows, etc.)? I even flirted with the notion that "somebody" thought I needed a weight loss supplement. But I KNOW I don't need it now because I just lost a substantial amount of weight. But I'm not here to Share My Secret, sell you anything or hang out a shingle. I lost weight because I ate less.

Almost no one knows how to receive another's pain. But one way NOT to do it is, "Oh, yes, I used to be like you. I used to have what you have. But everything changed when I dumped all my prescription drugs, embraced a much healthier way of life (implying that the sufferers aren't really trying and their attitude is dragging them down) and started taking xxxxx. All my symptoms went away and now I have tons of energy and a wonderful life!" The defense for this sort of obnoxious attitude is a "huh? Hey, I was only trying to help!" No, you were not.  You were shoring up your insecurity by trumpeting your conversion (and these things really do have the flavour of a religious awakening) to a Whole New Way of Life, usually available for $39.99 (for a whole months' supply! Order now), which is, just coincidentally, for sale on YOUR web site. No doubt these mercenaries sift through health-related Facebook pages/posts trying to find vulnerable people/potential customers, and no doubt move on quickly when somebody bites back (which they hardly ever do: everyone is afraid to talk back to these types, it seems).

Real compassion isn't "hey, I used to be like you" or even (as I got once, from someone who really should have known better, "When I look at you, Margaret, I think: there but for the grace of God go I"). It's having the guts and the grace and the humanity to listen without judgement, to accept that person's reality, and the self-esteem NOT to have to strut your stuff and constantly prove how much better you are. This is the realm of the fragile, but it's also the province of the greedy and heartless. These products sell like mad and seem to garner all sorts of testimonials, but who knows who writes them. Meantime, if someone shares their pain with you, ANY kind of pain, feel honoured, and don't say "I used to be like you, but then I wised up. If you want to fix it, here's what you should do."
(If you'd like to see what this woman is hawking, just click on the pink link below.)

Home

And here, a sensible retort from a woman who has had enough of this B. S.:

Please!!!!! Stop posting crap here. Water????? Seriously? A ph balance is the cause? Gees someone give this moron the Nobel prize. There are a few too many quacks here giving advice like get rid of meds? Without mine you might as well bury me now.

A post to the post: I've done a bit of digging, and this woman's blurb for Plexus Worldwide, which has a frighteningly Brave New World-ish sound to it, appears all over the place on Facebook. . . verbatim. It never varies. Buried among all the authentic comments, it still sticks out like a sore thumb, except for that phony "I've been there" at the beginning, a fake attempt to "identify" and disguise the blatant pitch. I wouldn't be surprised if it appears with only the name of the disease changed. I left a couple of comments, to which she replied "???". I don't think she understands what I am talking about. Can the phony "I used to be like you until I saw the light" crap. I don't even care if you were. Just can it.

Post-post-to-the-post: Now here is a REALLY interesting response, praising my piece on gratuitous advice/self-serving sales pitches. What really gets me is that these people seem oblivious to the fact that they are neatly proving my theory.

Hi Margaret, I'm Marianne with Personal Capital, and I really love how much of yourself you share with your readers. The fibro post was great by the way and I totally agree with you on how annoying those salespeople are!! :)

I was surprised to learn from a recent CNBC article that only 53% of us working-age women have started planning for retirement compared to 65% of our male peers!

I'd love for you to pick a female friend or family member to showcase in a post on your blog as a female financial role model. Maybe she writes a grocery list before shopping to fit her budget, or started walking to work to save money on gas.

Small decisions like these really add up over time and help people save for retirement. I think this would be inspirational for women reading your post who may not have a strong female role model, and haven't thought much about saving money for retirement.

Please let me know if you're interested and I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. Through October and November, we will be sharing some of our favorite posts on Twitter and Facebook, where we have over 10,000 followers each. I hope to see yours :)

Best,
Marianne Ahlmann

You know, this really makes sense to me. Obviously she loves my blog, and loves the way I rat out scammers. So. . . I hereby nominate ME as a financial role model (or roll model - I make good rolls, try to roll with the punches, and have rolled the dice that this will expose the kind of obtuseness and greed that drives mega-corporations).

I have more to say about all this, as my good friend Matt Paust has exposed Plexus Worldwide for what it really is. You can guess from the name that it's worse than Scamway, and my suspicion of the "good for man and beast" nature of their products is correct. This includes the infamous Pink Drink which guarantees dramatic weight loss in only a few days, but is likely the same product that cures fibromyalgia (which the sales rep claims to have). No doubt she also used to weigh 300 pounds, but after a few chug-a-lugs of Pink Drink is now 112.

Meantime, here's lots more, including an entire blog on the subject! Just click on the"pink links" below.

http://pinkdrinkscamalert.blogspot.ca/p/my-pinkwashed-journey-introduction.html

http://www.realscam.com/f9/plexus-worldwide-plexus-scam-pink-drink-reviews-plexus-sliim-4171/

http://www.plexuspoint.com/plexus-slim-reviews/


"Just one more thing. . . " I'm starting to feel like Columbo today.

It's a boggy landscape in Plexusland. You have to be extremely careful what you believe. My third "pink link" (above)  seemed to be solely devoted to debunking the mysterious Plexus Pink Drink, the one that doesn't actually help anybody lose weight, but after scrolling through about 20 pages, the author's tone began to subtly change.

No longer was she ranting about Plexus and posting "REAL" (negative) reviews, which she may well have written herself. Now she seemed to be hinting that yes, indeed, there was a secret to permanent weight loss, but you had to keep reading to find out what it was.

And reading. and reading. This site had all sorts of gimmicky charts and pictures and things, the strangest being a person stuck to a wall. As you scrolled down and scrolled down, the "science" of this secret was laid out in agonizing detail, but at a certain point you began to feel the subtle tug-tug of a hook.

Yes, a hook. In the form of a book.

This "debunker" whose life mission it was to discredit the pink slime/scam was selling a book about the REAL secret of weight loss. The cover was a blatant ripoff of the ". . . For Dummies" series, but it was amateurish enough that it looked self-published. I didn't stick around long enough to see how much it cost.

She has the One True Religion, see. You don't need to drink anything. You don't need to DO anything. But you do need to buy something. And though this didn't quite look like the pyramid/Ponzi scheme pushed by Plexus, it had a feeling of "wait, there's more" - another little hook, ONE more thing you needed to do, to buy, to believe in, in order to help you achieve your lifetime goals of fitness, health and longevity.

Conclusion and Guidance

All in all, Plexus Slim MIGHT work for a minor few. We don't know who these 'few' people are. It might be you, yes, it might work for you. But do you really want to spend $115/month for the next 6 months to find out?
AND that's not even the bad part, the worst part is: Do you want to risk all the side effects mentioned here?

I am sure if you're sane, the answer's A BIG NO!

So a better alternative for the sane:

Update: June 22 !

You can now find out if Plexus Slim is specifically right for you.

Just choose the right answers for the 6 questions below & find out if Plexus is right for YOU...

1. What's your age?

20-30
30-40
40-50
50 or above

Note: If you are below 20, you shouldn't even be here!

Concluding…

You DO NOT need Plexus to get fit, healthy, lose fat or {insert-any-of-your-desire-here!}

Each one of us is different. You ARE truly unique.

Your body, your metabolism, literally everything is distinctive about you.

So the hope of "one-drink-cures-all" is one of the silliest myths, and these "recurring monthly billing" product companies make a fortune off it!
Yet…

What you actually need is…





Huh? What does that mean?

That image hides the best kept secret of the entire fitness industry... a secret these companies will protect more than anything, and prevent you from finding about it...

But wait a sec... what the he** does that Spiderman like guy got to do with your weight!?

I explain it in this next post…

READ WHAT THE IMAGE MEANS

(By the way, the "right answers" to the above quasi-quiz all take you to the same page saying Plexus is poison, and the only answer to your weight problems is to buy the book.)

  Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA