No one will probably agree with any of this but I'm recording my view of the evening.







This was really the only protest I have ever been to where it was just the police protecting a building full of people and no counter protesters yelling back. I like the counter protesters more than the police because they give it some meaning. Having a wall of police you are yelling at just leads to police confrontation.

The sniper rifles pointed at our faces was a nice touch.



When we paraded through the merchandise area at the end I was losing my mind.

I mean heck, they were selling confederate flags on the streets of Buffalo and all we do is yell things like, "Trump is racist.". Well no shit Trump is racist. The people selling this stuff were probably, " Hell ya, Trump is racist whoop."

I think in some way I have more respect for the cities that get more violent. I know it's not the right thing but honestly, people should be scared to sell confederate flags in the street if a city that is half black. Without violence it puts out a message that it's acceptable. I know everyone is probably going to disagree with that, but I think if there were reprocussions they would think twice next time. I mean think how many people died defending the union against the Confederacy, how many people were enslaved, does no one remember? It wasn't that long ago that a confederate flags wernt just ironic statements made in China with a Trump stamped on them.

How did that even become a Trump merchandise item unless he stands for a straight up return to southern slavery? Is that his platform now?

Walking through that part, I literally wanted to flip the fucking merch stands over. It might have lead to a moment where I screamed at a merch person that I hope Isis murders their family. Looking back I keep wavering between feeling bad that I singled that person out just because they were close and not feeling bad because they were literally trying to make money of selling hate merch.

Next we we under a bridge by HSBC center where the police and horses corraled the protestors away from the tracks so that the Trump fans could get out.



I was really feeling angry so at that point we left for a moment to get our bikes but then I felt obligated to go back and see the end. When we got back we locked out bikes up a ways away as it was tricky having the bikes in the protest.

By the time we got back to the protest, the protesters were starting to march to the holding center because word had it that some people were arrested, we went and got our bikes again.

When we got back, we marched with the people in front but around church and pearl, the parade split in two due to some people having directions and other not.

By that point the group we ended up with was mostly a spontaneous group of protesters with #blacklivematters signs. The group was still heading to the holding center because they heard people had been arrested and wanted to show solidarity. They were really concerned, not even knowing who it was, just that it was someone who they wanted to show support for. I found that so amazing.

When that parade got to the holding center we were met by a group of white lesbians. Run on sentence, about to begin... One of the lesbians came up and asked joe and I, and some other white dude, some of the only white people there, and definately not the ones yelling at that point or with the banners, if we were the leaders of the group and if we could ask our group to quiet down because their friend was arrested and the police told them they could get out faster if there wasn't a loud protest.

This is outrageous on every level, it was almost comical.

I was astounded that she would even see the situation and say this. I responded back the protest is chaotic and no one is in control. Then I asked her if she thought she was in charge of the protest? She said that she and her group planned the protest on Facebook and she was sorry if it hadn't reached the groups we were with because they had tried to reach out to everyone.

Guess what we wernt with any Facebook group. Then she asked if we went inside the stadium because her group did, as though that made her better or more committed to the experience.

No one controls political unrest and protesting. Protest is not something that you are invited to participate on facebook or that you sign a fucking terms of agreement on.

Each person has a voice that they can choose to use as they desire. Just because her friend, who I probably know, is a privileged white girl who can go into the Trump rally and get kicked out from the inside doesn't mean that other people expressing their view, who might not even have that option, should have to hush their protest. Being at the holding center is part of the inconvenience of choosing the be arrested.

At that point, (e:Joe) could tell I was going to lose it so we had to leave. I'm ready for the election to be over.

One removed and one repaired garden box. Without the tortoise it's a lot easier to plan out the garden.

I wonder how much of this sushi plastic garbage is floating around the ocean? I don't understand why the Lexington Coop wouldn't use some real leaf material.

Seeing I'm always freezing and my fingers turn blue and have changes shape I thought I'd go to the doctor. It seems ridiculous that my doctors have moved even further away when I live next to a giant medical campus.

What I want more than anything is a doctor that plans go stay in town for more than one visit within walking distance of my neighborhood. I might need to just quit UBMD.

I have been feeling shitty for a while. The migraines, I am always freezing and my fingers turn blue and very cold which the last doctor thought was Raynaud's, the big finger tips (e:paul,60458) that keep growing, and the fact that I am increasingly forgetful.

The physician assistant I am seeing says, "has anyone ever talked to you about Schleroderma."

I said no but at the time I was thinking, "no but my whole life I was afraid of schleroderma because my Dad had some client who had it and we had a mug with it written on it." I looked it up one time as a kid, probably in encyclopedia Britanica and it freaked me out." I didn't really even know what it was. I just knew it was bad.

Anyways, she says she wants to look it up more before we talk about it, " how about we see each other again in two weeks after some labs?"

Who just brings that up casually like that without really knowing enough about it. Looking back maybe its just as wikipedia says, "Raynaud's is the presenting symptom in 70% of affected persons, occurs in 95% of affected individuals at some time during their illness" - but way to make a patient freak the hell out. Like she didn't think I would google it at that point and freak out. So I google it an read over the wikipedia article and some google images

Anyways, so I go get the labs right next door at Kaleida. At first I was all excited because Kaleida has their own portal and you get the lab results back in about 24 hours, right away, before they are even pass through a doctor for evaluation.

Then a few of them came back out of normal range with no doctor interpretation right from the lab. Like white and red blood cells count and I freaked.




In fact I immediately looked on google and it was all cancer, HIV, death, blah.

So I ran to Walgreens and got an HIV test. Negative. So then I was like oh fuck I am going to die of cancer. Emailed my leukemia doctor buddy and he said the range was not that significantly abnormal.

Then I found my test results from 6 months ago when I had the migraine attack from hell before I got the sumatriptan. Anyways, the numbers were better so I felt, oh god, the numbers were normal 6 months ago and are dropping now, I look that up. Google = you are going to die. I am sure everyone who is not a doctor and is reading this knows how that goes.

Then I decide to go way back and check my lab results on estrip from my physical in 2013 (e:paul,58517) . Turns out my lab results then had my levels lower than the normal range but that time included the text "some values may show slight deviations form the listed normal ranges but are not significant" vs the Kaleida one in bold, red with no interpretation.



Previously I was arguing for work to release lab results right away to patients because I knew the labs were doing it but the anxiety from that today, due to the way that they were presented, without interpretation really sent me over the edge. I know realize how important a doctor's interpretation is.

Here are the last two sets of results for future reference.

::READ PDF::

::READ PDF::