Archive for November, 2009

A portrait: The east side of the Freeway

November 24th, 2009

I moved recently, from west to east. I like it here. On the west side, it was all dog parks, young professionals, yuppies, health food stores, condo developments, and overpriced car washes. Here, on the east side of town, there are rib shacks, barbershops, free std clinics, chain link, and pit bulls.

Dilapidated houses with sagging porches and women with saggy tits lines the streets. Old men with tattered and stained Christmas sweaters sit at the bus stop benches, slicking their hair back with no destination in mind, making cat-calls to the ladies across the street. It actually makes the drive home pretty interesting. Still, I do have one problem, one colossal issue that most likely quickens the pace of my aging progress each day: Traffic.

The east side has its quirks. Sure, people cross the street where there is no crosswalk, taking their sweet time, looking you in the eye as if to tell you that they hate you simply for being in a car. Sure, the people actually in cars drive with the decisiveness of the squirrels one would find darting back and forth across the street, stopping and starting again, until they stop all at once under the tires of one of those tiny pickup trucks, the ones where the driver can’t seem to find the accelerator or turn signal. And of course, those who can find the gas pedal can’t seem to let off for even a second, at least until they are able to drive up side by side with your own car, relinquishing an array of pleasure induced aggressive phrases, before speeding off again only to get stuck behind another one of those tiny pickups. I am willing to let all of this go, all of it. After all, we all live in an area made up of one lane roads, wide enough for two lanes, but one because the city planner behind it all wanted to provide his drivers with a luxurious cruising area. I can understand the sentiment behind the act, but if that is the case, then why must it be 30 mph all the way down? So, we all are in the same boat and I can understand the need to beat mercilessly on the steering wheel or scream obscenities into a muffled hand. It is necessary to one’s health, especially when driving on the road of Austin. If we had to just sit there and take it all, then I’m afraid there would be a lot more stalled vehicles and premature aneurysms. However, the one thing I can’t let go, the one unforgivable aspect of this great city, is the traffic.

I can honestly say that the designer and engineer behind I-35 should be put on trial. It is actually that bad. I can’t even begin to guess how many cases of domestic violence, road rage, and car accidents have come from driving on 35. The worst thing about it is that there is no designated traffic time. Sure, 4:30 to about 7:00 is a horrific time to be driving most anywhere, but it doesn’t end there. Thursday afternoon, Sunday night; it is insane. Traffic pisses people off. Everyone is switching lanes to try and get home as quick as possible. Then fender benders are popping up all over the freeway. Lanes are closed because of those fender benders. A vicious cycle. I’ll bet the husband of the year could get a promotion, nail the assistant (which I guess would contradict him being husband of the year, accept in the eyes of everyone else, who still know nothing of his office affair), and get the last piece of cake in the break room, drive home, get stuck in rush hour on I-35, walk in the door and backhand his first born for getting a B on his spelling test. Not just any B either, a B+. That is how bad it is. Austin traffic turns angels into demons, men into monsters. New cases of Intermittent Explosive disorder are springing up all over town, while others just wither away and die while sitting bumper to bumper, nothing on the radio because someone stole their Antenna. I know that’s what I do, just take my seat belt off, roll the window down, and watch my soul float right out into the mess of idling metal and gasoline fumes until it is sucked into the undercarriage of an eighteen wheeler, everyone’s worst enemy. Hence, the mindless zombie look you catch on people’s faces.

So, I do love you east side. I love your assortment of bbq and $6 haircuts, but I hate your closest major freeway, and for that, I am sorry.

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My Hospital Bill

November 21st, 2009

A little over two weeks ago, I broke my wrist during a soccer game. I’ll have to say that definitely sucked. And when I say broke, I mean broke. I broke the shit out of it, specifically the radius bone. If I can get a hold of some pictures, I’ll be sure to post them. So, before I get started on discussing my hospital bill, let me start closer to the beginning.

Well, I didn’t take an ambulance to the hospital. Figured I’d save a few grand. The captain of the team actually ended up driving me, which was interesting. Before we departed from the fields, one of my team mates suggested a hospital that was closer by, which we dove to. It was in fact closer, the only problem being that there was no hospital there.

Anyway, we got to the emergency room about half an hour it had happened. The pain was definitely intense, but for some reason I had imagined it hurting more. This was my first break, after all. Even in the instant that I broke it, I didn’t notice right away. I fell down, got up, and began to run again. I thought my vision was a little wobbly and out of whack, but it actually just turned out that my arm was bent, like an optical illusion. There were about 20 people waiting when I got there, all seemingly okay just from looking. If anything, I was quite the spectacle,. appearing to be the only person with any visible injury. So, I got moved to the top of the list. They checked me out in about 15 minutes and in another 10, they called me back. I thought, “Damn. Who am I to rip on our health care system? This is going quicker than I thought.” Then, of course, I was whipped back into reality. Just like a visit to the doctor’s office, I then waited in a smaller, discreet, and more sterile room for another twenty minutes. I think it was around that time I was issued my first vicodin.

Multiple doctors and nurses poked their heads inside the door to comment on the nature of my wrist. I was taken to get some x rays and then a shot was administered directly into the bone. That did not feel good. I feel like that sensation was the closest feeling to passing out I’ve ever had, I think. The substance they injected was some cousin of Novocaine, which left the injured area completely numb. Then my arm was hung in a medieval/Chinese finger trap type contraption to set the bone. Well, the bone did set, and it did pop out again and it did reset, and it also popped out again. Then came another series of x-rays, maybe four times total. By the way, the setting took place as the Yankees put another World Series title under their belt. Big Surprise, but I won’t get into that now.

The doctors figured out that the bone wouldn’t set on its own, so surgery was needed. And I got the luxury of staying overnight, cleats, high socks, grass stains, sweat stained shirt and all. I proceeded to wash my face in the bathroom down the hall with antibacterial hand sanitizer. Slight relief.

The morphine came around 2 in the morning, right around the time the numbing agent had worn off completely. Morphine has never sat quite right with me. Right when it hits the bloodstream, I get the strange feeling that my body is shutting down, like I’m paralyzed for a few seconds, then it dissipates into a pseudo-pleasant sensation. I think I hit the button for more another two times during the night, the last time finding myself rejected because surgery would take place soon.

They proceeded with the normal jibber jabber and before I knew it, I had woken up, post-op. Now, coming off anesthesia is extremely trippy, but I won’t let myself get carried away with describing all the intricacies of my medicinal hallucinations.

To get to the point, I recuperated that day, spoke to various people; discharge nurses, social workers, surgeons. Everyone was very polite. Then I left, with a prescription for 60 high grade painkillers.

Today was the day that I took my first peek at the hospital bill. Sure, I had my guesses for what it might cost, but I was pretty far off, in the thousands. I did get my appendix removed in the 8th grade and that was about 12 grand, so I was expecting something considerably less this time around. After all, the appendectomy left me bedridden in the hospital for four days. The broken wrist didn’t even constitute a 24 hour stay. Are you ready for this, the cost of it all, the inescapable price of a broken wrist, a couple drops of morhpine, stale jokes, an assless gown, and a microwaved tray lunch.

$26,175.25

Yep. I’m sure you’re feelin’ it too. That sense of astonishment expanding in the pit of your stomach, sucking your pharynx through the lining of your larynx, a vortex pulling your organs downward until your cerebellum makes it way out the back end for you to look at with detached retinas. A little extreme, but essentially, our health care system makes me feel physically sick, and shocked. Who knows why it is this way? Maybe I pushed my luck the second time I buzzed the nurse in, like each press of the button sent an impulse to some massive motherboard that calculated and logged how much attention each patient required, then converting that attention to a monetary value to be wire transferred to the wallets and purses of all on duty. Perhaps I took thing a little too far when I required assistance removing my shirt to change into that sweet assless gown. I’m bewildered. Still, it was a learning experience and now I know better. If and when I happen to break something else, just call my drug dealer, bite a stick, and have my mom take a look at it.

26 grand just seems excessive, and the charges are still adding up. Now I get to have follow-up appointments with skeletal specialists, the first of which I had to take off work because they are only open two minutes out of every hour. Then I had to pay for parking, which they charge you for by the half hour, the first 30 minutes being free. Well, if the doctor would have just showed up on time, instead of being an hour late, then I wouldn’t have had to pay the four dollars. Can’t forget about the $35 copay for the x-rays either. Considering that I only spoke to the actual doctor for under a minute, the amount of time in which we figured out that the lack of ability for my thumb to bend was not normal, all of my expectations were met.

I look forward to my next follow-up appointment, eight weeks from now.

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Props to UC Students

November 21st, 2009

Tuition increases every year, no matter what, and I can not seem to wrap my head around it. What changes so drastically that we need a 10 % increase very year? I think that’s the going annual increase at my school, about 10 %. I still recognize all of the professors, all of the buildings still lean the same way, and the library still smells funny. What changes so much each year that universities need to suck more money out of everyone for tuition? One would think that endowments in the form of hundreds of millions, sometimes even billions (not hundreds), of dollars would be enough to provide a pretty damn decent college experience. I mean, the yearly tuition hikes at my school haven’t left my family of myself penniless, putting on weekly garage sales to pay for my education, but I would really like to know why. Why?

This brings me to what is happening in the state of California, specifically in the University of California Education system. A 32 % increase in tuition is absolutely ridiculous. I understand that the problem of funding doesn’t stem directly from the Universities, but from the state and national government. I understand that we are in a recession and budgets are being cut nationwide. Still, there is no excuse for what is happening in Our higher education system. Before we all know it, four year universities could be unattainable to the majority of the nation. It won’t even have anything to do with being poor. Instead, it will all be about, can I afford the option of paying the tuition at a four year school. It will be even more of a luxury than it is now. Four year universities will be the equivalent of shopping at Whole Foods, while community colleges will represent the Randall’s and Sam’s crowd (no offense to either store, or community colleges). So, I give my full support to all of the students protesting at the Los Angeles, Berkley, Davis, and other University of California campuses, for whatever it is worth, which in this case, is worthless because my opinion doesn’t really provide any monetary relief to those who will be forced to leave school because of the 32% tuition hike. Still though, I feel you.

California’s economy is in some deep shit, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways around this whole tuition deal. I’ll put it this way: If this happened at my university, then I would want to see every budget and expense report to know exactly what the school is spending its money on. What kind of coffee are they putting in the break rooms? Is it Green Mountain, Starbucks, Millstone? If it was, I’d tell everyone to get ready for either some Maxwells or some Folgers. Kiss the creamer goodbye too. I’d be looking at paper plates. Are they the really flimsy ones or those Dixy brand ones with the reinforced edges and ability to hold up porterhouses and baked potatoes and shit? Who’s supplying the cafeteria? What kind of deal are we getting on bulk orders of napkins, bread, and milk? Are we ordering new editions of text books every year? That’s one that really gets to me. If edition 12 is only a page or two different than edition 11, than what is the reason for ordering it, other than the bureaucratic business bullshit of the explanation? Basically, I think that the Education Board in California needs to start pulling receipts on everything. Who paid for the Dean’s Christmas beak trip? Why does my financial aid adviser drive a new beemer? These are some questions that could use answering, because I guarantee that all business-like entities are wasteful in some ways when it comes to budget expenses. After all, people are most definitely wasteful, and we are what makes up businesses. We all learned what the big wigs on wall street were doing with our money, so who’s to say that the fat cats on Hollywood Blvd. aren’t doing the same? There are always luxuries that can be cut out of the system, still leaving one hell of an educational institution.

I know that it isn’t just as easy as demanding to know where your money is going, even though it is more than reasonable. In fact, these west coast students have been doing quite a bit of demanding already, and instead of answers or satisfaction, handcuffs and badges are the only things coming their way. Still, being arrested for protesting is nothing to be ashamed of, especially if it is for a cause that you deem to be worthy. If anything, I would put it on my resume. Say “Ya. I got cuffed. Little time in the big house. Ain’t no thang. Just keepin’ it real.” Plus, we all know that if our parents have been arrested for anything in the past, it was either pot or taking a righteous stand against the man. If your parents did it, then it’s definitely alright. It may not be logical, but at least it would stand up in an argument with, say, your parents.

There are many students in California and across the US that won’t or would not be affected by a 32% tuition raise, or even a 50% tuition raise. Those are also the kids that most likely wouldn’t be affected if they totaled their car with a blood alcohol of .21. Not everyone has the money to throw at all of their money problems. If that were the case, well, that actually doesn’t even make sense. And, we all know that when tuition is raised, then financial aid is affected. Less money is given to those who need it the most and more students are forced to withdrawal their enrollment. It is something that is happening more and more with the current state of our economy. For instance, at Reed College, “known for its free-spirited students”, located in the progressive state of Oregon, “Too many of the students needed financial aid, and the college did not have enough. So the director of financial aid gave the team another task: drop more than 100 needy students before sending out acceptances, and substitute those who could pay full freight.” If that doesn’t completely suck, if that doesn’t completely, or at least partially squash your dreams, if that doesn’t completely light a fire inside of your soul, then I can’t say what would.

I would like to think that most colleges do their best in trying to provide a one of a kind and positive experience for the students, so they can’t always be the ones to blame. You have to trace the problem to the source, which in this case probably had something to do with lost investments and fraudulent CEO’s. What can you do?

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