Here's a good idea, God

I suspect I have written this before, but: If I were God, people who struggle with disabilities would get a pass on all other illnesses.

For instance, if you have ... say Friedreich's ataxia, then you do not suffer from colds or nasal allergy symptoms.

It's a cool idea, obviously, because that's the way I'd roll if I were God. But judging from my experiences while sniffling and coughing, it would also be a real time saver for the deity who always hopes to be "right on time."

If I had a nickel for every time, I cursed or prayed or both when my head flew into my computer screen or my little body was convulsed with flemmy coughs, I'd be rich and God would be busy listening to my prayers.

It's a win-win for all of us; I don't see how God has not done it before.

How much worse?

There are good days where I think:

"Hey, I really haven't gotten worse in the past several years. Maybe this is as bad as the fucking Friedreich's ataxia (ef FA) is going to get. I can live like this. It won't be easy, and I sure don't envy me, but I can do it."

Then, a night like last night happens, and the reality makes me cry.

I fell transferring to my chair after The Big Bang Theory. It wasn't a bad fall. but even with the help of Mom and her gait belt I could not get up in the chair.

Even with the belt, which is a plastic belt that goes around my chest and makes it easier to left someone, Mom is still 71.

It's not a surprise we had trouble, then. I refuse to make Mom struggle, and my muscles just won't freaking do what I ask. My feet kept sliding on the floor, my legs could not push my butt high enough to reach the chair, my arms couldn't pull it up.

We finally succeeded, and Mom pointed out many reasons -- it is a short couch and high chair, a slippery floor -- that that fall was not a reliable gauge of my ability.

It doesn't really matter. This was not one of those good days.

No more Spidey

One day soon -- this weekend probably -- I will read my final Spider-Man comic book ... at least for a while.

One of the first comics I remember owning is Amazing Spider-Man 185 from October 1978. In it, Peter Parker does not graduate from college because of an incomplete in phys-ed.

I wish I could say I have all the issues since -- that would be so awesome -- but no. I do have a lot of Spidey comics, but nowhere near that many.

I love Spidey, especially his willingness to shoulder responsibility -- with great power comes great responsibility and all that.

Because of this love, I overlooked a lot. I went along when Marvel unmasked him,, survived the Iron Spider outfit and even kept reading after he made a deal with the devil, trading away his love with MJ so everyone would forget his identity and Aunt May would survive a gunshot wound.

I stuck with Spidey when Marvel accelerated his publishing schedule, so instead of $3 a month, it costs more like $9.

Marvel and the writers apparently get responsibility when it comes to Spidey, just not when it comes to the real world. In the issue that came out last week, Peter manipulates a photo for the newspaper.

It is a cheap shot at an industry that is hurting ... and it is my industry. Mostly, it is so stupid. Peter has been a journalist since high school. No journalist would consider photo manipulation. It is no different from writing a lie.

And I will put up with no more.

Sometimes I run over my own feet

Mom and I took Claren the wonder dog for a quick walk tonight, and when we were on Lincoln Avenue, a car came up behind us. I headed to the side of the road, but accidentally clipped Mom's foot on the way over. She was fine, but I do know how she feels.

A few weeks ago, I decided to do my exercises while headed to my desk at work. This worked fine until my left foot fell off my foot plate and I ran it over.

Today, I was playing with Claren outside and she jumped on my lap. Somehow my foot got trapped between the chair base and the foot plate, perpendicular to the ground.

I tested whether it would be safe if I wheeled in to get help. It wouldn't, I decided. I was bent over trying to wrestle it free when my little sister came up and was like: Don't move, I'll help you, just don't move.

Now her paranoia about me moving was kind of confusing because I was stuck. Of course, it would have been understandable if she knew I was thinking about undoing my seatbelt and flipping myself out of my chair to free my foot.

Can you imagine Matt with a zombie wife?

I am not ignorant about zombies.

I am not in the same league as any of my nephews, each of whom can hold serious and detailed conversations about where they will go when the zombie menace arrives, but as I say I am not ignorant. I have read World War Z and the occasional zombie comic. I have seen several "of the dead" movies and that stereotypical Bond masterpiece Live and Let Die, which assured Jane Seymour a place deep in my heart.

For the life of me, though, I am not sure why I am turning into a zombie, but I am. No one has bitten me; I have not befallen no plagues that I know of.

My feet just are covered with cuts and scrapes that do not heal and instead just look gross. One trait of zombies is sores or decaying flesh. My cuts are not decaying, I guess, and they don't hurt, which may be another zombie trait. Zombies don't feel pain, do they?

And it is not like being zombie-fied solves my Friedreich's ataxia. I don't know that zombies' bodies are healed. In fact, the other zombies would probably just set on me for the easy pickings.

Oh, now this seriously blows. I was looking up whether zombies feel pain when I discovered that an assistant professor at Harvard has given a name to the zombie plague: Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency Syndrome.

I know that ataxia just means a lost of control of bodily movement, d neurodegenerative just means a progressive loss of neurons or brain function, but how would you like it if two words that describe your all-too-real disease also describes the goddamned zombie plague.

I guess we can now attribute my zombie feet to genes. I wonder what will be next.

Just my luck I'l be the only zombie to contract Kuru.