Metaphor Madness

Most of us like to try to sound marginally intelligent in our conversations with others. Not all, but most of us. Even when we aren’t trying to impress someone, we don’t want our friends and acquaintances to think “God, I can’t stand listening to him!” This is one of the reasons that cliches are unacceptable in scholarly papers, news articles and any form of writing that is designed to be of a professional ilk. Likewise original thoughts and metaphors carry a heavier weight in verbal intercourse than tired-out cliches.

Nevertheless, worn old cliches and metaphors do serve a purpose. Some are so aptly put that it is difficult to come up with a better phrase to illustrate one’s point. “Between a rock and a hard place” is one metaphorical cliche that comes to mind. It carries an indefatigable image to which anyone can relate. The circumstances it describes are immediately understandable. And you and I both know that no amount of learning or eloquence will eradicate tired cliches and metaphors.

Therefore it seems time that rather than declaring a moratorium on such phrases, it is time for a quick lesson on their use and structure. As stated, no one wants to seem unintelligent in front of anyone. The act of using a cliche or threadbare metaphor treads thin ice (there’s one!), so let’s make sure that you know how to properly use them.

Let’s look at a few examples. “It’s six of one and a half-dozen of the other” is a benign starting point. If you are going to use this cliche, go to the trouble of actually saying “it’s six of one and a half-dozen of the other.” A popular bastardization of this phrase lately has been expressed as “it’s what and what.” Remember, we’re trying to sound marginally intelligent. Abandoning the imagery that “six of one and a half-dozen of the other” carries just sounds stupid. To say “what and what” simply portrays the speaker as one who rummages around in his brain for a simple thing, a thing that should be right there on top of everything else and, being unsuccessful, asks the listener two questions “what?’ and “what?” because he can't even finish his own thought. Do you want to be the type of conversationalist that your listener thinks of you: “Jesus Christ, he can’t even come up with a tired old metaphor! I don’t want to listen to someone who can’t even find his conversational ass with both hands.”

Here’s another one. “God-given” and God-forsaken” are NOT interchangeable. "God-forsaken" is a description of something that even the Creator of all things has left alone. If you have a God-given right to something, do not say it is God-forsaken. This will have the rest of us picturing you finding something after digging through a dumpster of hazardous waste and horrible, rotting garbage in the effort to cling to that thing which even the homeless would throw out. If you believe that you have a “God-forsaken right” to something, then by all means, indulge in it, but don’t whine to anyone that no one else wants to be around you. Even God would ask what that smell is.

Do you you have a girlfriend? A boyfriend? Significant other? Life partner? Mistress? Sweetheart? Fuck buddy? Then please let the world know this relationship! Do not refer to them as your “boo.” It sounds as if you were going to say “boyfriend” but then got tired mid-word and just left it at “boo” because you were too lazy to finish the syllables. At best, describing someone as your “boo” sounds as if the individual in question is the person who scares you every Halloween.

Do not try to improve upon cliches and well-known metaphors. If you must describe yourself as being stuck between two difficult, if not impossible obstacles, then say that you were “between a rock and a hard place.” Do not tell your audience that you were “trapped between a cliff and a mountain.” Nor should your say you were betwixt “a concrete wall and a cement rampart.” Your metaphor may be amusing to the odd geologist or structural architect, but for the most part, we will think of you as someone who has clearly never gotten laid.

One more tip, because I’m tired and I want to go to bed. Avoid dogs in your metaphors. Utilizing the imagery of a canine is confusing, and can make you look like more of an idiot. The common phrase “working like a dog” is not consistent with the also common phrase “it’s a dog’s life.” If you describe someone as working like a dog (rough, sweaty, difficult work) then how will we reconcile the leisurely, lying-around-but sometimes-licking-my-butt imagery that “a dog’s life” conveys? Are you “dog tired” because you were working “like a dog” or because you laid around in the sun doing nothing on a “dog day afternoon”? Yes, dogs in conversation are inconsistent, confusing and often embarrassing. Avoid them. You don’t want to give your friends the wrong impression when you greet them with “Yo, dawg!”

Stay tuned for more metaphor madness in days to come. In the meantime, try not to sound like an idiot. Yes, this may mean you might actually have to use your brain when speaking. But then, isn’t that what you want to sound like you’re doing?

The Science of Apathy (Or Maybe the Science Fiction of Apathy)

The Science of Apathy (Or Maybe the Science Fiction of Apathy)

I love sci-fi. I love real life too. It’s always so much fun when I watch sci-fi movies about aliens and space travelers and such. They’re always trying to blend in with their disguises and their shape-shifting ways, only to be foiled by keen-eyed civilians or “the government.” Earth survives another day. Yay.

But then it comes down to real life. I’d love to believe in actual extraterrestrials. But I don’t. Why? I haven’t seen any. Nor have you. Or have we? How many times have you seen someone on the street that was just so ugly or deformed or unearthly beautiful? Did it ever cross your mind that they might be an alien? Of course not. Me neither. But here’s a fun thought: what if they are? I’m sure psychologists would say that our minds simply try to incorporate the unusual into our usual frames of reference. For example, a time-displaced caveman might refer to a helicopter as some sort of bird (remember that movie?). Likewise, we would probably just think of an alien as a different-looking human. We’d just say “Oh, they must just have Down Syndrome,” or “What a an unfortunate birth defect, having a head shaped like the Sydney opera house. She should get surgery for that.”

Which brings me back to sci-fi. Remember when Captain Kirk and crew returned to the 1980’s to retrieve their humpback whales? The Shat ordered his crew to remove their Starfleet insignia. Why? Who would care? Mr. Spock wore that bandana thing to hide his ears. Really? What was the point? (Pardon the pun.) I’ve seen lots of people with weird-shaped ears but it never once entered my mind that they might be an alien. I’d venture to say that you, dear reader, have done the same.

I’ve been a paramedic and a nurse for nearly twenty years. Many, many times I’ve listened to patients’ chests and heard heart tones on the right side as well as the left, or heard breath sounds when listening to an abdomen. Breath sounds in a belly or heart tones on the right side are exactly what you shouldn’t hear. But I never suspected that they might be a timelord like Dr. Who or other such alien with two hearts or otherworldly arranged internal architecture. I just figured that my stethoscope was really sensitive or the patient’s chest was particularly resonant.

The sci-fi show that I think strikes the nail on the head psychology-wise is “Invader Zim”, a Nickelodeon cartoon that only ran for a couple of seasons. In it, Zim is a green-skinned alien with no ears and pink eyes who lives in a freakish house. He goes to great lengths to disguise himself as he plots to annihilate the world. Zim needn’t bother. The only person who believes he is an alien is Dib. Everyone else is convinced Dib is insane. All the rest of humanity is completely apathetic about the unusual happenings surrounding Zim.

That’s pretty much how humanity really is. I don’t think that there are extraterrestrials living among us; which, if you’re an extraterrestrial, is the perfect disguise. The folks that believe in aliens are the “fringe” people, and they proclaim their stories of abduction and insidious alien plots between doses of Seroquel behind the revolving door of their psychiatric facility. What if they're actually right? Like I said, I’d like to believe in aliens, but I don’t. Does that make me as apathetic as the rest of the world? Probably, but I don’t particularly want to spend my days behind that revolving door in a Seroquel happy place.

So is there a happy medium? Can a normal person find a compromise between boring, sane apathy and the men in the white coats? Just for fun, next time you see someone unusual-looking, imagine that they might actually be an alien, instead of an unfortunate soul whose eyes are too far apart or in need of a good plastic surgeon to take care of that tail or proboscis. Just the other day, I saw a man who was odd-looking (I say he was a “man,” but who knows?) His eyes were really far apart and his skin was an odd shade, sort of like you would get by putting too much butter on burnt toast. His ears were odd too, almost star-shaped. My first thought? Some black guy born with fetal alcohol syndrome. My second thought? He could be an alien and no one else realizes, or cares! The second thought, that he might be an alien, was so much more fun than the depressing disease process thought! Try it! Just be careful who you talk to about it.

See you in the asylum!

Take On Me. Forever. I Don't Care If You're Sick of Me.

“So, honey, don’t you think it’s time you got a job or something?”

“A job? What do you expect me to do?”

“Well, I’m sure you could find something. Maybe a motorcycle mechanic or an artist? I mean you have experience in both of those...”

“A mechanic? You think that just because I used to drive motorcycles in a comic book and can handle a pipe wrench in a fight that I can be a mechanic?”

“Well, honey it’s just that since you… you… whatever you did to get out of that comic book, you’ve just been sort of sitting around for the last few years. Don’t you think it’s time you became a part of the real world? I mean you busted out of the book so you could be in the real world. But instead you just sit around and read comic books all day.”

“No, sugar tits. I busted out of the book so I could be with what I thought was a hot piece of ass. But that ass has gotten kind of wide lately. Can’t help but notice."

“WIDE? Have you seen your gut lately? Talk about wide! Christ, what was I thinking, letting a fucking DRAWING crash at my house?! I could’ve been reading ‘Garfield’ for all the help you are around here.”

"Besides, I read comics so I can keep up with all my old comic book buddies. You're on goddamn Facebook all the time, chatting with your old buddies; I'm keeping in touch with my old friends. What’s wrong with you going to work every day?”

“Jesus, why can't you just get a freaking job?! God I hate you. Fuck you!”

“Fuck you too!” *sob*

Dear Suckbook;

Dear Facebook;
I know you think you're being helpful to us by rearranging your layout. But like the waitress that refills your coffee or tea after 2 sips and wrecks all the perfect proportions of sweetener or lemon or milk that the customer has gone to great lengths to achieve, so you do with your new, “helpful” layout. We were just beginning to get used to Facebook's quirks and links. Now all the things we liked, well, let's not say “liked,” let's say “gotten used to,” have moved or been hidden or disappeared altogether.

Though I never played Mafia Wars or Farmville, I can see how some people might get into them. Unfortunately, Facebook, the main reason I signed up was so that I could quickly keep up with my friends' and acquaintances' lives at a glance. I could see their status updates, click their link of some interesting website, and breeze through their photos and smile with them and at them. Nowadays, the vast majority of my Facebook feed is taken up with updates of things that don't even exist. “So-and-so found a mysterious egg on their farm in Farmville,” or “Such-and-such paid off the cops in Mafia Wars.” I've been hit by virtual pillows in fictional fights, I've received countless binary drinks without so much as a hangover to show for it, and I know exactly what angel, New Moon character, New Orleans bar, neighborhood, Renaissance artist, dragon, color and vampire my friends and I are. Now I have learned that though these updates continue to flood my Facebook stream, the actual games involved have become far more difficult to locate should I ever, in a fit of bored delirium, actually want to play them.

To make things even more wonderfully efficient and handy, I also carry your mobile application on my iPhone. I remember when your first update came out from the old version. We iPhoners waited with 'bated breath for the blessed event. The old original application could do three things: status updates, photos and mail. Then the update came out and we were all perplexed at the dozens of choices we had (what exactly is the difference between “news feed” and “live feed”? I still don't know). Back in the day, status updates, new photos and web links were all in the same place and provided a fun mishmash of variety. Now you can see exactly one form of update at a time. Wanna see Mary Jo's comments on the happenings at the barbecue? You'd best not be looking at “links.” When Grandma asks to see the pictures of her grandkids before she dies, how do you explain to her that she should be looking at “photos” not “pages”? Oh, and while I'm talking about Facebook's iPhone app, why, why, WHY when I click on a link to a Facebook thingy in Facebook's iPhone app does it take me to Facebook's login screen? Then if I actually go to the trouble of logging in to Facebook (while already logged into Facebook [yeah, WTF?]) I can't even see or use the thingy I was clicking for in the first place? Now when I think back to the old, original Facebook iPhone application (and the old original Facebook, come to think of it) when all I could do was see and post status updates, photos and do Facebook email, I realize that's exactly what I wanted to do anyway!

Facebook, thanks for trying, really. I know there's a lot of effort going into trying to please all the people all the time. But I really don't care that a non-existent lonely chicken wandered onto Myrtle's non-existent farm in Farmville. I have no idea what I should do when I get super-poked or why anyone would want to do such a thing. The proper response to Monty becoming a fan of “If I get 10,000 fans I will eat a bug” eludes me. I used to know exactly what to do when a friend posted about their new house or their new baby or the death of someone or when they were having a terrific/terrible day. Such tangible connections to friendships are rare on Facebook these days and your most recent layout change has made it even more difficult to keep in touch. Ironically, wasn't keeping in touch with friends the main reason of creating Facebook in the first place?

Not to seem rude, Facebook, but if you keep it up, you'll be seeing my Assbook it out the door.

Ramp Rants - Welfare Queens, Drag Queens & TaySean

Ramp Rants - Welfare Queens, Drag Queens and TaySean

Many moons ago, when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I was in paramedic school. It was fascinating learning how to treat the cavemen after the saber-toothed tiger attacks, or how to extricate a neanderthal from the horns of a triceratops. It was always exciting to see the pterodactyls swoop skyward when they were startled by our lights and sirens.

One particular day during my paramedic precepting, I was assigned to work with Lisa, one of the crusty old-time paramedics who still managed to make it seem like she cared about people. I was also partnered with Gretchen, another paramedic student who I did all my precepting with. She would ride with me and we would both get the required hours on the ambulance for class. Lisa’s task was to educate us on paramedic work with hands-on experience.

In those days, the St. Bernard housing project was a thriving mini-metropolis, sparkling with drugs, murders and welfare babies. On this particular day, our little team got a call in the St. Bernard for a female with “abdominal pain.” Dispatch didn’t tell us she was pregnant; they didn’t need to. It is automatically understood that any female in the projects between the ages of twelve and fifty is pregnant. It is one of the rules of EMS.

We arrived at the address and hauled our cookies up, up, up to the third floor of the tiny, twisting stairway where the apartment was. Sitting on the floor was our patient, a female of 18 years and about the same girth and weight of a grand piano. She was hollering as labor pains struck several times. Around the patient were several family members. The sister held her hand, the mother stood across the room drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette, encouraging her, specifically saying “Girl, you bettah have dat baby quick so you can get yo’ welfare check! I needs some o’ dat too!” The grandmother sat on the couch watching her soap operas. A male flitted about down the hallway, ducking in and out of one of the rooms like a nervous butterfly.

The patient felt like she needed to push, a sign of an imminent delivery. Upon inspection of her nether regions, after hauling the fat rolls away from her crotch, we could see the amniotic sac protruding from her cavernous vagina. None of us had seen a pregnancy where the sac was protruding out. We were worried that it may have involved placenta previa, the placenta blocking the cervical opening, which would necessitate a cesarean section. I got on the radio to medical control. “Doc, I have an 18 year old female, prima gravida, full term. Contractions are about a minute apart and the amniotic sac is presenting, still intact. I’d like to go ahead and deliver here.”

“Negative,” the doctor countered. “Get her to the hospital ASAP.”

“Doc, we’d really like to deliver here. We’re on the third floor of the projects and it’s going to be tough getting her out.”

“Do not deliver that baby in the field. Get her to the hospital immediately!” he reaffirmed.

Lisa, Gretchen and I quickly went over the logistics in our head of moving the patient’s ponderous bulk down the stairs. We would have to carry her, since walking her would likely hasten the impending birth. Lisa and Gretchen each grabbed a shoulder; I carried her by the knees. Halfway down the steps, another contraction came and she shrieked with the pain of it. It made me acutely aware that I, standing between her legs, was in the direct line of fire should she choose to launch her bundle of joy at that moment.

We finally made it downstairs and got her onto the stretcher. It was Gretchen’s turn to ride with the patient and Lisa in the back. I didn’t even get into the back of the truck to assess vital signs or start an IV; it was time to leave. I hopped into the driver’s seat as the male that had been flitting about alighted in the passenger seat. He wore regular clothes, but his eyebrows were carefully plucked and he had the remnants of fingernail polish still on, apparently from his last night out in drag. “Are you family to her?” I asked. It was not uncommon for complete strangers to jump into the ambulance as if they were kinfolk so they could get a ride into town.

“I’m her brother, Mister,” he said with a lisp so heavy that I thought it would have been more likely to assign him the relationship of sister, if you know what I mean.

“Okay,” I said as I pulled away. One block down the street, Lisa hollered from the back, “Sean, pull over!” Aw, crap.

I was glad I had the good sense to put a fresh pair of gloves on before I got out of the truck and came around to the back. The moment I opened the back doors to the ambulance, there was a massive explosion and a baby came skittering down the stretcher directly at me. I caught it, football-style, just before it shot out the back of the vehicle like some sort of James Bond weapon. Up until then, I had no idea that an umbilical cord is long enough to stretch from the gurney out the door. I now know that it is.

The baby was a healthy boy. I clamped and cut the cord, Gretchen assessed it while Lisa tended to the female. After a few minutes, we were ready to go again.

Back in the front, the brother was beginning to have a nellie fit over the goings-on in the back, with a similar intensity as if he had broken a high heel or he suddenly discovered that his purse didn’t match his miniskirt. “Oh, mister! What’s going on? Is she all right? Oh, my nerves is bad; I cain’t take this!” he exclaimed, fanning himself like Aunt Pittypat in Gone With the Wind.

I didn’t want him to have a full-blown conniption in the front of the ambulance as I drove. I reassured him that everything was all right. “Look, your sister’s fine and the baby’s fine. Just relax. It’s a boy. You can name him after me if you want,” I said jokingly, hoping to lighten him up a bit. Even though he was light in his loafers enough.

“Really mister? What’s your name?” he asked.

“I’m Sean.”

He turned to the little doorway to the back of the ambulance. “Shaniqua!” he screeched at his sister. “The paramedic say we can name the baby after him! His name be Sean; we can call the baby TaySean!”

“Ooh, I likes dat!” she answered back.

I sat in my seat unable to speak. I carefully reviewed the conversation in my head. “I’m Sean” were my exact words; I was sure of it. ‘TAY Sean? Where the HELL did that come from?’ I wondered, flabbergasted.

I flashed the queen next to me an inquisitive look, one that I hoped would convey the proper amount of ‘What the fuck?’ He just shrugged his shoulders and said “well, you know...”

At the hospital, Gretchen and Lisa brought the female and baby inside. I stayed and cleaned up the back of the truck. Amniotic fluid, blood and baby-birthing gunk had gotten everywhere from the mighty eruption resulting in the birth of little TaySean. As I wiped everything down and threw away half our equipment that had been soiled, I pictured TaySean growing up in the St. Bernard projects. He would ask his mother where he got his name. As she cashed her welfare check at the liquor store, she would explain about the circumstances of his birth, the trip down the stairs, the Richter scale reading on his delivery, and why his uncle is dressed like that. And she would mention me, Sean, the paramedic who offered his name. Later in life, I was sure I would have TaySean in my ambulance again, when he got shot from some drug deal gone bad or something.

There are some things you do in EMS that you’re proud of. There are some things you do you’re not proud of. The idea of my namesake growing up in the St. Bernard with his gigantic mother, welfare-money-hungry grandmother, drag queen uncle and my name made me cringe. Between pride and humiliation, where does TaySean fall in?

Infallible EMS Dispatch Gets Balloon Boy Call

Emergency Computer Aided Dispatch system is put to the test...

Operator 1: “911, What is your emergency?”

Caller: “My 6 year-old son just drifted away in a helium balloon!”

Operator 1:“Can I have your phone number in case we get disconnected?”

Caller: “Yes, its 555-1234.” Oh, please, I don’t know what to do! It’s starting to drift away!”

Operator 1: “You say your son is floating away in a balloon?”

Caller: “Yes!”

Operator 1: “Hmm, I don’t see that in any of the emergency dispatch responses in the computer. Hold on a second.”
To Operator 2: “Hey, this lady says her kid's floating away in a balloon! Where is that in the computer?”

Operator 2: “Kid in a balloon? (scrolling through computer choices) I don’t see that either. Just go with “Generalized Weakness.”

Operator 1: “OK ma’am, I have it now. Is he conscious and breathing?”

Caller: “I guess so, he just climbed into the balloon. I can’t really see him right now. He’s a thousand feet overhead. Please send help!”

Operator 1: “I’ll send someone out. Is his breathing normal?”

Caller: “What? I don’t know! He’s breathing HELIUM!”

Operator 1: “Is he having any chest pain?”

Caller: “Are you kidding me? He’s in a freaking balloon!”

Operator 1: “I understand you’re anxious ma’am, but I need you to try and stay calm. I need you to answer my questions so we can get the proper response crews to you.”

Caller: (calming down) “OK, I’ll try. Please send someone; the balloon is drifting out of sight!”

Operator 1: “How old is he? Does he have any medical problems?”

Caller: “Six. And no, he’s perfectly healthy.”

Operator 1: “How long has he felt weak?”

Caller: “Weak? What are you talking about? Haven’t you been listening? He climbed into an experimental balloon I was building with my husband and it drifted away with him inside it?”

Operator 1: “Oh that’s right. Sorry, I’m trying to use the computer script for ‘Generalized Weakness.’"

Caller: “WHAT?”

Operator 1: “So the balloon drifted away with your 6 year-old husband and he’s feeling weak?”

Caller: “Oh my God!”

Operator 1: “OK ma’am, the ambulance is on its way. Do you want me to stay on the line till they arrive?”

Caller: “An ambulance? Why are you sending an ambulance? He’s in a freaking BALLOON! Thousands of feet in the air! What is an ambulance going to do?”

Operator 1: “Ma’am I need you to try to stay calm so I can send the proper response crews...”

Caller: “Oh sweet Jesus! Never mind, I’ll call CNN!” (Click)

Operator 1 to Operator 2: “What a bitch! Some people just don’t know how to speak to another human being.”

Operator 2: “So she canceled the call?”

Operator 1: “Yeah. Says she’s gonna call CNN. Freak. Like they’d be interested.”

Operator 2: “Hmph!”



(By the way, here is the ACTUAL 911 call: http://mp3.911dispatch.com.s3.amazonaws.com/fortcollins_balloon_911.mp3)

An Experiment in Sleep Deprivation

I just got home from work a few minutes ago. Nothing remarkable, eh? Well, to tell the truth, I am currently hallucinating. I’ve been awake since 4am on Tuesday,; it’s 12:47am on Thursday. In a few minutes, that’ll be 45 hours straight with no sleep. I wantred to write this blog post under the influence of lack of sleep and the wierd things I keep seeing out of the corner of my eyes. I am not going to edit or correct what I write. I am just going to type and type like that dude what’s his name did. Oh yeah Jack Kerouac. He wrote “on the Road” on one hugely long continuous sheet of paper at one sitting, keeping himself wawke with drugs and God knows what. I loved that book.
Anyway, what’s ther eason for my 45 minute stint awake? It’s my own fault. I effed up my schedule and doub;e booked myself. Long story short, I worked a 12 hour EMS shift, then went to a 12 hour overnight nursing shift, then followed that up with another 14-hour EMS shift. I am exhausted. I was driiving home and caught myself wondering if I was driving in a dream or driving for real. When You;re this tired, everything takes on a distinct aura of unreality. You can talk and watch and eat and drink and work and read and whatever, but tghere is a odd sense that none of what you do matters, as if you are in a dream.I find it similar to lucid dreaming, that is, when you are aware that you are asleep and dreaming, but continue to dream anyway. With this wonderful knowledge, you are free to do whatever you want, because you know it is only a dream and will hold no consequences in real life when you wake up.
In a strange sens, being 45+ hours exhausted is something of the photographic negative of lucid dreaming. You get the impression that you are living in the real world, but still nothing matters. Same picture, but colored by different means.
\I hope I wasn’t a dick to my partner today. Jeremy is an excellent EMT, someone who I’d not mind being permanent partners with. I’d watch his back and I’m pretty sure he’d watch mine. I have no idea if I said or did anything to piss him off. When you’re lucid dreaming, or dreaming reality, it soedn’t realy matter. Whay tou do/,. I hope I dodn;t piss him off.

Oh by the way, I have a nw bottle of vordjka to help me on my way to the promised land of sleepy-byes.
I was hoping to type and type a la Jack Kerouac but I don’t have the same good drugs a s he had and i think I stopped making sense a coupel paragraphs ago. It’s so tempting to hit the backspace button! To be honest, I have hit it a few times, like maybe you wouldn’t know who Jack Kreouwac iswas. Waow I just glancesd at what I’m writng. It Super sucks!
Ok 45 hours is the limit. I’m so totally going to bed. allright- Laterz!